"Style be blowed!" I cried. "The only way to get a style is by writing. Mac, I should cut out all the lectures about Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare, and let the children write during the English period . . . if I had periods, which I wouldn't. I don't want style from kiddies; I want to see them create in their own way. If they are free to create they will form their own style."
In a conversation one always has a tendency to overstate a case, and as the argument went on I found myself saying wild things. Writing calmly now I still hold to my attitude concerning style. I love a book written in fine style, but I refuse to impose style on children. In every child there is a gigantic protest. Thus the son of praying parents often turns out to be a scoffer. I had a good instance of the danger of superimposition of style.
I had a class of boys and girls of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen years of age. For one period a week we all wrote five minute essays, and then we read them out. Sometimes we would make criticisms; for instance one girl used the word "beastly" in a serious essay, and we all protested against it. Then one day the head-master decided that they should write essays for him. He set a serious subject—The Function of Authority, I think it was—and then he went over their books with a blue pencil and corrected their spelling and style.
Three days later my English period came round. I entered the room and found the class sitting round the fire.
"Hullo!" I said, "aren't you going to write?"
"No," growled the class.
"Why not?"
"Fed up with writing. We want to talk about economics or psychology."
A fortnight later they made an attempt to write short essays, but it was a miserable failure; all the joy in creation had been killed by that blue pencil.
I can give an example of the other way, the only way. One boy of fifteen hated writing essays, and when I began the five minute essay game he sat and read a book. After a time I gave out the subject "Mystery," and I saw him look up quickly with flashing eyes.