i have been considering the subject of school magazines, and i wonder whether it would be possible to run a school magazine here. i have had no experience with a school magazine, but i edited a university weekly for a year. it wasn't a success. i wrote yellow editorials and placarded the quadrangles with flaring bills which screamed "liars!" "are school teachers socially impossible?" "the peril and the pity of the princes street parade," at the undergraduates passing by. it was of no use. no one bothered to reply to my philippics, and i had to sit down and write scathing replies to my own articles. i could never bring my circulation up to the watermark of a previous editor who had written editorials on such bright topics as "the medical congress" and "the work of the international academic committee."
in edinburgh the students are indifferent to their 'varsity magazine, but in st. andrews[pg 193] the publication of college echoes is the event of the week. the reason is that the st. andrew's students form a small happy family; if a reference is made to bejant smith everyone understands it. if you mentioned bejant smith in the edinburgh student no one would know whom you were referring to.
the success of college echoes gives me the idea of a school magazine that would succeed. a magazine for my hundred and fifty bairns would be useless; what i want is a magazine for parents and children. it would be issued weekly, and would mingle school gossip with advice. if willie wilson knew that friday's edition might contain a paragraph to the effect that he had been discovered murdering two young robins, i fancy that he would think twice before he cut their heads off.
i imagine entries like the following:—
"peter thomson said on thursday that it was lloyd george who said 'father, i cannot tell a lie,' and he was caned by the master who, by the way, has just been appointed president of the conservative association."
"mary brown was late every morning this week."
[pg 194]
"john mackenzie is at present gathering potatoes at mr. skinnem's farm, and is being paid a shilling a day of ten hours. mr. skinnem has been made an elder of the parish kirk."
someone has said that the most arresting piece of literature is your own name in print. that is true, although i suppose that the thrill wears off when you become as public as winston churchill or charlie chaplin. why shouldn't the bairns experience this thrill? when i write the report of a local concert for the local papers i always give prominence to the children who performed. incidentally, when i have sung at a concert i omit all reference to my part; i hate to remind the audience that i sang. i am a true altruist in both cases.
publicity is the most pleasing thing in life, and that's why patent medicines retain their popularity. at present the village cobbler is figuring in the local paper as a "cured by bunkum's bilious backache bunion beans" example, and beneath his photograph (taken at the age of nineteen; he is fifty-four now) is a glowing testimonial which begins with these words:—"for over[pg 195] a decade i have suffered from an excess of uric acid, from neurotic dyspepsia, and from optical derangements. until i discovered that marvellous panacea...."
i marvel at his improved literary style; it is only a month since he wrote me as follows:—"sir, i will be oblidged if you will let peter away at three oclock tonight hoping that you are well as this leaves me i am your obidt servent peter macannish."
the magazine would also contain interesting editorials for the parents. art would have a prominent place; if a bairn made a good sketch or a bonny design it would be reproduced.
of course, the idea cannot be carried out for lack of funds. yet i fancy that the money now spent on hounds and pet dogs would easily run a magazine for every school in scotland.
the technical difficulties could easily be overcome. the bigger bairns could read the proofs and paste up the magazine, and the teachers would revise it before sending it to the printers.
i must get estimates from the printers, and[pg 196] if they are moderate i shall try to raise funds by giving a school concert.
* * *
i see that the educational institute is advertising for a man who will combine the post of editor of the educational news with the office of secretary to the institute. the salary is ￡450 per annum.
this combining of the offices seems to me a great mistake. for an editor should be a literary man with ideas on education, while a good secretary should be an organizer. because a man can write columns on education, that is no proof that he is the best man to write to the office washerwoman telling her not to come on monday because it is a holiday.
i could edit the paper (i would take on the job for a hundred a year and the sport of telling the other fellow that his notions of education were all wrong), but i couldn't organise a party of boys scouts. kitchener is a great organiser, but i shouldn't care for the editorials of the new statesman if he were editor.
i think that the institute does not want a[pg 197] man with ideas. it wants a man who will mirror the opinions of the institute. to do this is a work of genius, for the institute has no opinions. no man can represent a body of men. suppose the institute decides by a majority that it will support the introduction of "love" as a subject of the curriculum. the editor may be a misogynist, or he may have been married eight times, yet the poor devil has to sit down and write an editorial beginning: "love has too long been absent from our schools. who does not remember with holy tenderness his first kiss?..."
a paper can be a force only when it is edited by a man of force and personality. a man who writes at the dictation of another is a tenth-rater. that, of course, is why our press says nothing.
* * *
little mary brown was stung by a wasp the other day as she sat in the class.
"henceforward," i said, "the wasp that enters this room is to be slain. tom macintosh i appoint you commander in chief."
i begin to think that i prefer the wasp to the campaign against it. to-day i was in the[pg 198] midst of a dissertation on trusts when tom started up.
"come on lads, there's a wasp!"
they broke a window and two pens; then they slew the wasp.
the less studious boys keep one eye on the window all day, and i found dave thomson chasing an imaginary wasp all round the room at arithmetic time. dave detests arithmetic. but when i found that tom macintosh was smearing the inside window-sill with black currant jam, i disbanded the anti-wasp army.
* * *
the inspectors refuse to allow teachers to use slates nowadays on the ground that they are insanitary.
to-day i reintroduced slates to all classes. my one reason was that my bairns were missing one of the most delightful pastimes of youth—the joy of making a spittle run down the slate and back again. i always look back with tenderness to my old slate. it was such a serviceable article. by running my slate-pencil up it i got all the beats of a drum; its wooden sides were the acknowledged tests for a new knife, as a hammer it[pg 199] had few rivals. then you could play at x-es and o-ies with impunity; you simply licked your palm and rubbed the whole game out when the teacher approached.
in the afternoon half a dozen bairns brought sponges, and i sighed for the good old days when sanitary authorities were plumbers on promotion.
* * *
i have given my bairns two songs—screw-guns and follow me home, both by kipling. i prefer them to the usual "patriotic" song that is published for school use. i don't see the force of teaching children to be patriotic; the man who imagines that a dominie can teach a bairn to love his neighbour or his country is fatuous. flag-waving is the last futility of noble minds. the queer thing is that all these titled men who spout about imperialism and patriotism, and "make the foreigner pay" are enemies of the worker. they don't particularly want to see a state where slums and slavery will be no more; they are so busy thinking out a scheme to extend the empire abroad that they haven't time to think about the empire[pg 200] at home. what is the use of an india or a south africa if east ham is to remain?
no, i refuse to teach my bairns to sing, "britons never, never, never shall be slaves." my sense of humour won't allow me to introduce that song.
although i like kipling's verses i abominate kipling's philosophy and politics. he is always to be found on the same platform with the curzons and milners and roosevelts. he believes in "the big stick"; to him britain is great because of her financiers, her viceroys, her engineers. he glories in enterprise and big ships. he believes with the late lord roberts that the englishman is the salt of the earth. i should define kipling as a grown-up public school boy.
i always think that the "patriot's" main contention is that a man ought to be ready to die for his country. i freely grant that it is a great thing to die for your country, but i contend that it is still greater to live for your country; and the man who tries to live for his country usually earns the epithet "traitor."
"what do they know of england who only england know?" kipling says this,[pg 201] or words to this effect. that's the worst of these travelled johnnies; they go out to india or africa, and two months after their arrival they pity the narrow vision of the people at home. after having talked much to travelled men i have come to the conclusion that travel is the most narrowing thing on earth.
"if i went out to india," i remarked one day to an anglo-indian friend at college, "and if i started to talk about socialism in a drawing-room, what would happen?"
"oh," he said with a smile, "they would listen to you very politely, but, of course, you wouldn't be asked again."
when i went down to tilbury to see this friend off to india i looked at the crowd on the first-class deck.
"dick," i said, "these people are awful. look at their smugness, their eagerness to be correct at any expense. they are saying good-bye to wives and mothers and sweethearts, and the whole blessed crowd of 'em haven't an obvious emotion among 'em. i'll bet my hat that they won't even wave their hands when the tender goes off."
as i left the boat the first-class passengers[pg 202] stood like statues, but one fat woman, with a delightfully plebeian face cried: "so long, old sport!" to a man beside me.
"good!" cried dick to me with a laugh.
"lovely!" i called, and waved my hat frantically to the fat woman. poor soul, i fear that society out east will be making her suffer for her lapse into bad form.
travel is like a school-history reader; it forces you to study mere incident. the travelled man is an encyclop?dia of information; but i don't want to know what a man has seen; i want to know what he has thought. i am certain that if i went to live in calcutta i should cease to think. i should marvel at the colour and life of the streets; i should find great pleasure in learning the lore of the native. but in a year i should very probably be talking of "damned niggers," and cursing the india office as a crowd of asses who know nothing about india and its problems.
i once lent ann veronica to a clever young lady. her father, an engineer who had been all over the world, picked up the book. two days later he returned it with a final note dismissing me as a dangerous character for his[pg 203] daughter to know. the lady was clever, and had mentality enough to read anything with impunity.
no, travel doesn't broaden a man's outlook.
my writing is like my teaching, it is an irresponsible ramble. i meant to write about songs all the time to-night.
i curse my luck in not being a pianist. i want to give my bairns that loveliest of tenor solos—the preislied from the meistersingers. i want to give them lawrence hope's slave's song from her indian love lyrics—"less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel." and there are one or two catchy bits in gipsy love and the quaker girl that i should like them to know. i am sure that they would enjoy mr. jeremiah, esquire, and the gipsy's song.
