A Dominie in Doubt. Alexander Sutherland Neill
cranks?" she demanded. "I don't see it. Psychology has nothing to do with crystal-gazing you know."
I was gravelled.
"But what's the idea?" I asked. "Improvement of design?"
This made her think hard.
"H'm, yes, I think I know what you mean," she said slowly. "But remember that before you can improve the psyche you must know the psyche."
I hastened to agree.
"Certainly, but all the same there is much room for improvement. You don't want to come off at every hill, do you?"
This seemed to make her more thoughtful still.
"No," she said, "but don't you think that the mind makes the hill?"
This staggered me.
"Eh?" I gasped. "Mean to say that I broke my chain on Logie Brae yesterday because——"
"I'm afraid it is too difficult for me," she said apologetically. "I get lost in metaphors."
Then I asked her something about ball bearings, and she threw me a grateful smile … for changing the subject—as she thought.
The most amusing joke is the joke about the innocent or ignorant.
Everyone is tickled at the Hamlet joke I referred to in my Log.
The school inspector was dining with the local squire.
"Funny thing happened in the village school to-day," he said. "I was a little bit ratty, and I fired a question at a sleepy-looking boy at the bottom of the class.
"Here, boy, who wrote Hamlet?"
The little chap got very flustered.
"P—please, sir, it wasna me!"
The squire laughed boisterously.
"And I suppose the little devil had done if after all!" he cried.
We laugh at that story because we have all made mistakes owing to ignorance, and blushed for them a hundred times later. When we laugh at the squire, we are really laughing at ourselves; we are getting rid of our pent-up self-shame. That's why a good laugh is a medicine; it allows us to get rid of psychic poison, just as a good sweat rids us of somatic poison. Charlie Chaplin has possibly cured more people than all the psycho-analysts in the world.
* * * * *
Public speaking is a most difficult thing. It is difficult enough when you know your subject, and it is almost impossible if you don't. At a dinner someone asks you to get up and propose the health of the ladies. I tried proposing that toast once; luckily most of the diners were under the table by that time. What can one say about the ladies?
When you have a definite subject to talk about, and when you know everything about it, even then public speaking is difficult. You stand up before a sea of faces. You see no one; you dare not catch anyone's eye. The best plan is to fix your eye on the blurred face of the man at the back of the hall. You feel that the audience is vaguely hostile.
At one time I used to go straight into my subject … "Ladies and gentlemen, the subject of evolution has occupied the minds of—" Then the audience began to rustle, and the women turned to look at the hats behind them.
Nowadays I am more wary. I stand up and gaze over the sea of faces for a full minute. There is absolute silence. I put my hands into my trouser pockets and gaze at the ceiling, as if I were considering whether I should go on or give it up and go home. Even the boys at the back of the hall begin to look towards the platform.
Then I look down and find that my tie is hanging out of my waistcoat, and I adjust it. A girl of ten giggles.
"What can you expect for fivepence half-penny?" I ask, and the audience gasps.
"Why doesn't someone invent a long tie that won't come out at the ends?" I ask wearily, and there is a laugh. I go on from ties to collars, and there is another laugh. After that I can speak on education for two hours, and everyone in the hall will listen with great attention.
The first thing in public speaking is to get on good terms with your audience, and I claim that the best way to do this is to show them the human side of yourself. Some of your hearers are agin you; they have come out to criticise you. You disarm them at once by treating yourself as a joke. Of course you must suit your tactics to your audience. The tie remark will put me on good terms with a rural audience, but it would fail in a lecture to teachers in the Albert Hall.
An important thing to remember is that crowd humour is quite different from individual humour. A crowd will roar with delight if the lecturer accidentally knocks over the drinking glass on the table, but no individual ever laughs when a similar accident happens in a private room. Read the reports of speeches in the House of Commons. You will read that Lloyd George, in a speech, says: "And now let us turn to Ireland (loud laughter)." But in cold print it isn't a very good joke.
Quite a good way of commencing a lecture is to tell a short story … about the chairman if possible. But you must be careful. Keep off the topic of the chairman's marital affairs; he may have lodged a divorce petition the week before.
On second thoughts I think it better not to mention the chairman at all. Last winter the local mayor was presiding at a lecture I gave in an English town. After I had delivered the lecture, he got up.
"I came to this meeting feeling dead tired," he said, "but after Mr.
Neill's lecture I feel as fresh as a daisy."
I rose in alarm.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said hastily, "the mayor has been sitting behind me. Do tell me: has he been asleep?"
In the ante-room afterwards he assured me solemnly that he hadn't been asleep.
On Friday night I began thus: "Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to talk about Forgetting." Then I put my hand in my inside coat pocket; then I tried another pocket, and got very excited while I rummaged every pocket I had.
"I must apologise," I said, "but I have forgotten my notes."
The audience laughed, and we became the best of friends.
* * * * *
Forgetting is very often intentional. We forget what we do not want to remember. Brown writes to me saying that he is taking the wife and kids to the seaside, and would I please pay him the fiver I owe him? I at once sit down and write: "My dear Brown, I enclose a cheque for five quid. Many thanks for the loan. Hope you all have a good time at the sea."
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