I think Miss Martin the infant mistress is a good teacher. Her infants do not fear her, and I am sure they love her. The only person they fear is Mac, poor dear old Mac, the most lovable soul in the world. He tries hard to show his love for the infants but somehow they know that behind his smile is the grim head-master who leathers Tom Murray. I sent wee Mary Smith into Mac's room to fetch some chalk to-day, and she wept and feared to enter. Occasionally, I believe, Mac will enter the room, seize a wee mite who is speaking instead of working, and give him or her a scud with the tawse. I wonder how a good soul like Mac can do it.
I have an unlovely story of a board school. An infant mistress lay dying, and in her delirium she cried in terror lest her head-master should come in again and strap her dear, wee infants. It is a true story, and it is the most damning indictment of board school education anyone could wish for. She was a good woman who loved children, and if fear of her head-master brought terror to her on her deathbed, what terrors are such men inspiring in poor wee infants? The men who beat children are exactly in the position of the men who stoned Jesus Christ; they know not what they do, nor do they know why they do it.
* * * * *
There was a stranger in Dauvit's shop when I entered to-day, a seedy-looking whiskered man with a threadbare coat and extremely dirty linen. Shabby genteel would be the Scots description of him.
Dauvit asked me a casual question about London, and the stranger became interested at once.
"Ah," he said, "you're from London, are ye? Man, yon's a great place, a wonderful place!"
I nodded assent.
"Man," he continued, "yon's the place for sichts! Could anything beat the procession at the Lord Mayor's show, eh?"
I meekly admitted that I had never seen the Lord Mayor's show, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"But I'll tell ye what's just as good, mister, and that's the King and
Queen opening Parliament. Man, yon's a sicht, isn't it?"