A Dominie Dismissed. Alexander Sutherland Neill
forth" not a "putting in."
* * *
I met Macdonald to-night, and I asked him how things were doing.
"I'm in the middle of prizes," he said wearily, "and if there's one thing I detest it's prizes."
I began to think that I had misjudged Macdonald.
"Excellent!" I cried, "we agree for once! What's your objection to prizes?"
"They're such a confounded nuisance."
"Granted," I said.
"That's all I have against them. You never know how you are to distribute the things."
"Why do you object to them?" he asked.
I sat down on Wilkie's dyke and lit my pipe.
"I object to them on principle, Macdonald. They're tips, that's what they are."
"Tips?"
"Yes. I give a porter tuppence for seeing my bicycle into the van; I give Mary Ritchie a book for beating the others at reading. I tip both."
"I don't see it."
"The porter shouldn't get a tip; his job is to look after luggage. Mary's job is to read to improve her mind."
"But," said Macdonald, "life is full of rewards."
"I know." Here Peter Mitchell strolled up. "We're talking about prizes," I explained. "Life is full of rewards of all kinds, but the only reward that matters is the joy in doing a thing well. If I write a poem or paint a picture I'm not writing or painting with one eye on royalties or the auction room. I sell my poem or picture in order to live … in a decent civilisation I wouldn't require to sell it to live, but that's by the way. My point is that prizes are artificial rewards, just as strapping is an artificial punishment."
"Goad!" said Peter Mitchell, "do ye mean to tell me that Aw wasna thinkin' o' the reward when I selt my powney last Saturday?"
"Competition is a good thing," said Macdonald. "Look at running and sports and all that sort of thing."
"I admit it," I said, "you like to beat your partner at golf. But my contention is that the prize at the end is vulgar; the joy is in being the best sprinter in the country. After all you don't glory in the fact that Simpson took seven at the tenth hole; your glory lies in the thought that you did it in three.
"Prizes in school are not only vulgar: they are cruel. Take Ellen Smith. Ellen has always been a first-rate arithmetician; she has the talent. For the past four years she has carried off the first prize for arithmetic. Sarah Nelson is very good, but work as she likes she can't beat Ellen. Sarah becomes despondent every year at prize-giving time. Bairns aren't philosophical; they don't see that the vulgar little book they get isn't worth thinking about. The ignorant noodles who sit on School Boards (Peter Mitchell had moved on by this time) stand up at the school exhibition and talk much cant about prizes. 'Them that don't get them this year must just make a spurt and get them next year.' And the poor bairns imagine that a prize is the golden fruit of life."
I notice that the men who are keenest on school prizes are firm believers in school punishments. And they are generally religious. Their god is a petty tyrant who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. They try to act up to the attitude of their god … hence, I fancy the term "tin god."
* * *
I see that many eminent people are making speeches about "Education After the War." I can detect but little difference between their attitude and that of the commercial men who keep shouting "Capture Germany's Trade!" "Let us have more technical instruction," cries the educationist, "more discipline; let us beat Germany at her own game!" The commercial man chuckles. "Excellent!" he cries, "first-rate … but of course we must have Protection also!"
And the educationist and the commercial man will have their way. Education will aim frankly at turning out highly efficient wage-slaves. The New Education has commenced; its first act was to abolish freedom. Free speech is dead; a free press is merely a name; the workers were wheedled into giving up their freedom to sell their commodity labour to the highest bidder, while the profiteer retains his right to sell his goods at the highest price he can get. Every restriction on liberty is alleged to be necessary to win the war.
The alarming feature of the present Prussianisation of Britain lies in the circumstance that the signing of peace will be but the beginning of a new war. If the plans of the Paris Economic Conference are carried out true education is interned for a century. Millions have lost their lives in the military war: millions will lose their souls in the trade war. Just as we have sullenly obeyed the dictates of the war government, we shall sullenly obey the dictates of the trade government. "We must win the trade war," our rulers will cry, and, if the profiteers say that men must work sixteen hours a day if we are to beat Germany, the Press and the Church and the School will persuade the public that the man who strikes for a fifteen hours day is a traitor to his country.
Will anyone try to save education? The commercial men will use it to further their own plans; the educationists will unconsciously play into the profiteers' hands; the women … only the other day the suffrage band was marching through the streets of London displaying a huge banner bearing the words "We Want Hughes." Hughes is the Premier of Australia, a Labour man dear to the hearts of all the capitalist newspapers. His one text is "Trade after the War."
Who is there to save education? The teaching profession could save it, but teachers are merely servants. They will continue to argue about Compulsory Greek and, no doubt, Compulsory Russian will come up for discussion in the educational papers soon. The commercially-minded gentlemen of Westminster will draw up the new scheme of education, and the teachers will humbly adapt themselves to the new method.
I don't think that anyone will save education.
IV.
I lay on a bank this afternoon smoking. Janet and Jean and Annie came along the road, and they sat down beside me.
"I'm tired of the school," said Annie wearily; "Aw wish Aw was fourteen!"
"What's wrong now?" I asked.
"Oh, we never get any fun now, the new mester's always so strict, and we get an awful lot o' home lessons now."
"Annie got the strap on Friday," explained Jean. "Mester Macdonald's braces broke Aw think, at least something broke when he was bending doon and he took an awful red face … and he had to keep his hands in his pouches till night time to keep his breeks up."
"Did Annie pull them down?" I asked.
Jean tittered.
"No, but she laughed and he gave her the strap."
"Aye," cried Annie in delight, "and they nearly cam doon when he was strappin' me!"
"Why do awkward incidents occur to dignity?" I said, more to myself than to the bairns, "my braces wouldn't break in fifty years of teaching." Then I laughed.
Margaret Thomson came down the road on her way to Evening Service, and she reddened as she passed.
"Eh!" laughed Janet, looking up into my face, "did ye see yon? Maggie blushed! Aw wudna wonder if she has a notion o' the Mester!"
"How could she help it, Jan?" I said. "Why, you'll be hopelessly in love with me yourself in a couple of years, you besom!"
She stared before her vacantly for a little.
"Aw did have a notion o' you when ye cam first," she said slowly.
I put my arm round her neck.
"You dear kid!" I said.
She smiled up in my face.
"Ye had that bonny striped tie on then," she said artlessly.