A Dominie in Doubt

by Alexander Sutherland Neill

"You don't know much about it, old chap," he said genially.

"Hardly anything at all," I said with true modesty, "only I know one thing about you, and that is that the fault always lies in yourself. When you flog Tom Murray, you are really chastising the Tom Murray in yourself . . . that is, the part that your wife knows so well—the part of you that leaves the new graip out in the rain all night, that rebels against the authority of the School Board and the inspectorate. Tom is being crucified for your transgressions."

Barrie, wizard as he is, failed to understand the full significance of Shakespeare's line: "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves."

* * * * *

The opposite of the Sadist is the Masochist—the person who finds sexual gratification in being beaten or bullied. When 'Arriet proudly boasts about the black eye that 'Arry gave her on Saturday night, she is being masochistic, and the woman who likes to be bullied by the strong, silent man is likewise a masochist. I do not say "nothing but" a masochist, because she is also a Sadist, for Sadism and Masochism are complementary in the same person.

It is an understood fact that many people find joy in suffering, and I can recollect feeling something akin to joy when the dentist, before the days of the local anaesthetic, used to lay hold on my molars.

Hence I look back to the day when I whacked Peter Smith for cruelty to a calf, and I acknowledge that I was wrong. I recall explaining to him that I wanted him to realise what suffering meant, but I was completely mistaken. If Peter were a Sadist in his cruelty, my cruelty to him was giving unconscious gratification to the Masochistic part of him. If his cruelty to the calf was due to his self-assertion again I did the wrong thing, for the fear evoked by my strap merely inhibited his desire to assert himself in cudgelling calves. I think now that there was nothing to be done; his cruelty showed that his whole education had been wrong. Had he been allowed to create all the way up from one week old he would have applied his interest to making rabbit-hutches instead of to beating calves.

I remember a questioner at one of my lectures. I had been trying to elaborate the release theory, and had said that a boy should be encouraged to make a noise so that he will release all his interest in noise as power.

"If a boy liked torturing cats, would you encourage him on the theory that suppression by an adult would cause the child to retain his interest in torturing cats?"

"Certainly not," I said, and the lady crowed. I do dislike questioners at any time, but when they crow . . . .! However, I tried to hide the murder in my heart by smiling.