"A week, sir," he replied.
"What school did you come from?" asked the visitor.
"I never was at any school in my life," he said, "my father lives in a caravan and I never was long enough in a place to go to school."
I explained that Hugh had come voluntarily to me saying: "My father can't read or write, and I can't either, but I want to be able to read about the war and things like that."
"I don't know what to make of it," said my visitor.
"It is a great lesson on education," I said. "He feels that he wants to read ... and he comes to school seeking knowledge. And that's what I want to supersede compulsion. If I had my way no boy would learn to read a word until he desired to read; no boy would do anything unless he wanted to do it."
Then he brought forward the old argument that freedom like that was handicapping them for after life; they would not face difficulties.
"Hugh was up against a greater difficulty than most boys ever come up against," I said, "and he faced it bravely and confidently. When you are free from authority you have a will of your own; you know exactly what you want and you set your teeth and get it. You are on your own, you have acquired responsibility. Given a dictating teacher or parent a boy will do the minimum on his own responsibility. Good lord! if I make all these youngsters sit up and attend strenuously to my speaking I am not training them to face difficulties; I am simply bullying them, making them a subject race."
"You are training character."
"I would be training children to obey, and the first thing a child should learn is to be a rebel. If a man isn't a rebel by the time he is twenty-five, God help him! Character simply means a man's nature, and I refuse to change a man's nature by force; I leave the experiment to the judges and prison warders."