"That's what childhood is for," I explained, "for playing and playing again. In most schools the children work until they tire, and then they play. My system is the reverse; they play until they are tired of play and then they work ... ask for work."
I know that the villagers will never understand what I was trying to do. My neighbour, Lawson of Rinsley School, had a glimmering of my ideal.
"I see your point," he said, "but the fault of the system is this: you are not preparing these children to meet the difficulties of life. In your school they choose their pet subjects, but in a factory or an office they've got to do work that they may hate. I say that your kids will fail."
"You aren't teaching them character," he added.
Lawson's criticism has made me think hard. I grant that I am not an efficient producer of wage-slaves. The first attribute of a slave is submission; he must never question. Macdonald is the true wage-slave producer. He sets up authority to destroy criticism, and the children naturally accept their later slavery without question. Macdonald is the ideal teacher for the reactionists and the profiteers.
Will my bairns shirk the difficulties of life? There is Dan MacInch. He shirked algebra; he told me frankly that he didn't like it. I said nothing, and I allowed him to read while the others were working algebraical problems. In less than a week he came to me. "Please, sir, give me some algebra for home," he said, and in three weeks he was as good as any of them. I hold that freedom does not encourage the shirking of difficulties. I found that my bairns loved them. Some of them delighted in making them. Jim Jackson would invent the most formidable sums and spend hours trying to solve them.
Of course there were aversions. Jim hated singing and grammar. Why should I force him to take an interest in them? No one forces me to take an interest in card-playing ... my pet aversion, or in horse-racing.
Freedom allows a child to develop its own personality. If Jim Jackson, after being with me for two years, goes into an office and shirks all unpleasant duties, I hold that Jim is naturally devoid of grit. I allowed him to develop his own personality and if he fails in life his personality is manifestly weak. If Macdonald can turn out a better worker than I can ... and I deny that there is any evidence that he can ... I contend that he has done so at the expense of a boy's individuality. He has forced something from without on the boy. That's not education. The word derives from the Latin "to lead forth." Macdonald would have made Jim Jackson a warped youth; he would have Macdonaldised him. I took the other way. I said to myself: "This chap has something bright in him. What is it?" I offered him freedom and he showed me what he was—a good-natured clever laddie with a delightful sense of the comic. I think that his line is humour; more than once have I told him that he has the makings of a great comedian in him. I said this to Lawson and he scoffed.
"Good Lord!" he cried, "what a mission to have in life!"
"Better an excellent Little Tich," I replied, "than an average coal-heaver. To amuse humanity is a great mission, Lawson."