A Dominie in Doubt

by Alexander Sutherland Neill

"You mean it?" persisted Macdonald.

"My dear Mac," I said, "an author dare not read his own book."

"Dare not! Why?"

"Because it's out of date five minutes after it's written."

For fully a minute we smoked in silence. Macdonald appeared to be digesting my remark.

"You see," I continued presently, "when I read a book on education, I want to learn, and I certainly don't expect to learn anything from the man I was five years ago."

"I think I understand," said Macdonald. "You have come to realise that what you wrote five years ago was wrong. That it?"

"True for you, Mac. You've just hit it."

"You needn't have waited five years to find that out," he said, with a good-natured grin. "I could have told you the day the book was published—I bought one of the first copies."

"Still," he continued, "I don't see why a book should be out-of-date in five years. That is if it deals with the truth. Truth is eternal."