i tried an experiment to-day. i gave an exam. in history, and each pupil was allowed to use a text-book. the best one was first, she knew what to select. i deprecate the usual exam. system of allotting a prescribed time to each paper. blyth webster, the racy young lecturer in english in edinburgh university, used to allow us an indefinite time for our old english papers. i generally required a half hour to give him all i knew about old english, but i believe that some students sat for five hours. students write and think at different rates, and the time limit is always unjust.
i wish the department would allow me to set the higher grade leavings english papers for once. my paper would certainly include the following:—
"if shakespeare came back to earth what do you think would be his opinion of women's suffrage (refer to [pg 106]the taming of the shrew) home rule, sweated labour, the kaiser?"
"have you read any utopia? if not, it doesn't matter; write one of your own. (note ... a utopia is an ideal country—this side the grave.)"
"discuss spenser's idea of chivalry, and state what you think would be his opinion on table manners, soho, or any slum you know, "the present state of ireland."
"what would burns have thought of the prevalence of the kilt among the semitic inhabitants of scotland? is burns greater than harry lauder? tell me why you think he isn't or is."
"discuss the following humorists and alleged humorists:—dickens, jacobs, lauder, jerome, leacock, storer clouston, wells (in kipps, and mr. polly), locke (in septimus), bennett (in the card), mark twain, your class teacher, the average magistrate."
"if you have not read any humour at all, write a humorous dialogue between a brick and the mongrel dog it came in contact with."
i hold that my exam. paper would discover any genius knocking about in ignorance of his[pg 107] or her powers. i intend to offer it to the department ... when i am out of the profession.
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it is extremely difficult for any teacher to keep from getting into a rut. the continual effort to make things simple and elementary for children is apt to deaden the intellect.
to-night i felt dull; i simply couldn't think. so i took up a volume of nietzsche, and i now know the remedy for dullness. nietzsche is a genius; he dazzles one ... and he almost persuades. to-night i am doubting. is my belief in a great democracy all wrong? is it true that there is a slave class that can never be anything else? is our christian morality a slave morality which is evolving the wrong type of human?
i think of the pity and kindness which is making us keep alive the lunatic and the incurable; i am persuaded to believe that our hospitals are in the long run conducing to an unfit race. unfit physically; but unfit mentally? is sandow the superman? will nietzsche's type of master man with his physical energy and warlikeness prove to be the best?
[pg 108]
i think that the journalists who are anathematising nietzsche are wrong; i don't believe the kaiser ever read a line of his. but i think that every german is subconsciously a believer in energy and "master morality"; nietzsche was merely one who realised his nature. the german religion is undoubtedly the religion of the old testament; to them "good" is all that pertains to power; their god is the tyrant of the old testament. nietzsche holds that the new testament code of morals was invented by a conquered race; the poor were meek and servile, and they looked forward to a time when they would be in glory while the rich man frizzled down below.
no man can scorn nietzsche; you are forced to listen to him. only fools can dismiss him with the epithet "madman!"
but i cannot follow him; i believe that if pity and kindness are wrong, then wrong is right. yet i see that nietzsche is wise in saying that there must always be one stone at the top of the pyramid. the question is this:—will a democracy always be sure to choose the right man? i wonder.
i found one arresting statement in the[pg 109] book:—"if we have a degenerate mean environment, the fittest will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy and meanness; he will survive." that is what is happening now. i believe that the people will one day be capable of altering this basis of society; nietzsche believed that the people are mostly of the slave variety, and that a better state of affairs could only come about through the breeding of supermen ... masters. "the best shall rule," says he. who are the best? i ask, and i really cannot answer myself.
* * *
as i go forward with these notes i find that i become more and more impelled to write down thoughts that can only have a remote connection with the education of children. i think the explanation lies in the fact that every day i realise more and more the futility of my school-work. indeed, i find myself losing interest sometimes; i go through a lesson on geography mechanically; in short, i drudge occasionally. but i always awake at composition time.
i find it useless to do home correction; a bairn won't read the blue pencil marks. i must sit down beside him while i correct;[pg 110] and this takes too much time ... from a timetable point of view.
but the mistakes in spelling and grammar are minor matters, what i look for are ideas. i never set a dull subject of the how-i-spent-my-holidays type; every essay must appeal to the imagination. "suppose you go to sleep for a thousand years," i said, "and tell the story of your awaking." i asked my qualifying to become invisible; most of them took to thieving and spying. i gave them wells's the invisible man and when the sleeper wakes to read later.
"go to mrs. rabbit's garden party, and describe it." one boy went as a wolf, and returned with the party inside. a girl went as a weasel and left early because she could not eat the lettuce and cabbage on the table. one boy went as an elephant and could not get in.
"write a child of seven's account of washing day," i said to my qualifying, and i got some delightful baby-talk from margaret steel and violet brown.
"imagine that you are the last man left alive on earth." this essay produced some good work; most of the girls were concerned[pg 111] about the fact that there was no one to bury them when they died.
the best results of all came from this subject:—"die at the age of ninety, and write the paragraph about yourself to the local paper." most of them made the present minister make a few pious remarks from the pulpit; one girl was clever enough to name a strange minister.
a newspaper correspondence interests a class. "make a mr. james smith write a letter to the scotsman saying that he saw a cow smoking a cigar one night; then write the replies." one boy made a william thomson suggest that a man must have been standing beside the cow in the darkness. smith replied that this was impossible, for any man standing beside a cow would be a farmer or a cattleman, and "neither of them can afford to smoke cigars."
* * *
i notice that many school boards insist on having trained teachers. is it possible to "train" a teacher? are teachers not born like poets? i think they are. i have seen untrained teachers at work, and i have seen trained teachers; i never observed a[pg 112] scrap of difference. all i would say to a young teacher is: "ask questions. ask why there is a fence round the field, ask why there is a fence round that tree in the field, then ask whether any plant or tree has a natural fence of its own."
and i think i should say this: "a good teacher will begin a lesson on cromwell, touch, in passing, jack johnson, charlie chaplin, votes for women, guinea pigs, ghosts, and finish up with an enquiry into protective coloration of animals."
the code seems to be founded on the assumption that the teachers of scotland don't know their business. why specify that nature study will be taught? any good teacher will refer to nature every five minutes of the day. to me teaching is a ramble through every subject the teacher knows.
no, i don't think a teacher can be trained, but i am prejudiced; i took the acting teachers' certificate exam ... and passed third class. in the king's scholarship i was ninety-ninth in the list of a hundred and one. luckily, the acting teachers' list was given in alphabetical order.
i had a friend at the university, anderson[pg 113] was his name, a medical. he had passed in physics, and naturally his name was near the beginning of the list. his local paper had it "a brilliant student." anderson got through at the ninth shot.
* * *
to-day i talked about crime and punishment. i told my bairns that a criminal cannot help himself; heredity and environment make a man good or bad. i spoke of the environment that makes millions of children diseased morally and physically, and of the law that punishes a man for the sins of the community. i told them that there should be no prisons; if a man is a murderer he is not responsible for his actions, and he must be confined ... but not in prison.
our present system is not justice; it is vengeance. i once saw a poor waif sent to prison for stealing a pair of boots, sent to the care of warders, sent to acquire a hatred of his fellowmen. justice would have asked: "why did he steal? why had he no boots? what sort of life has he been forced to lead?" and i know that the waif would have been acquitted.
[pg 114]
i told my bairns that to cure any evil you must get at the root of it, and i incidentally pointed to the insurance act, and said that it was like treating a man with a suppurating appendix for the headache that was one of the symptoms. i told them that their fathers have not tried to get at the root of evil, that their prisons and cats and oakum are cowardly expedients. the evil is that the great majority of people are poor slaves, while the minority live on their earnings. that isn't politics; it is truth. i told them that if i had been born in the cowgate of edinburgh i should have been a thief and a drunkard ... and society would have added to my curse of heredity and environment the pains and brutishness of a prison. and yet men accuse me of attaching too much importance to material reforms.
* * *
i have not used the strap for many weeks now. i hope that i shall never use it again. i found a boy smoking a cigarette to-day. four years ago i should have run him into the school and welted him. to-day i spoke to him. "joseph," i said, "i smoke myself, and at your age i smoked an occasional [pg 115]woodbine. but it isn't really good for a boy, and i hope you won't get into the habit of buying cigs. with your pocket money." he smiled and told me that he didn't really like it; he just smoked for fun. and he tossed the cigarette over a wall.
a very clever friend of mine talks about the "hamlet cramp." i've got it. other men have a definite standard of right and wrong; i have none. the only original sin that i believe in is the cruelty that has come to man from the remote tree-dweller.
