"Possibly," I answered, "but I was looking at children from a grown-up point of view. I thought of them as they affected me, instead of as they affected themselves. I'll give you an instance. I think I said something about wanting to chuck woodwork and cookery out of the school curriculum. I was wrong, hopelessly wrong."
"I'm glad to hear you admit it," said Macdonald. "I have always thought that every boy ought to be taught to mend a hen-house and every girl to cook a dinner."
"Then I was right after all," I said quickly.
Macdonald stared at me, whilst his wife looked up interrogatively from her embroidery.
"If your aim is to make boys joiners and girls cooks," I explained, "then I still hold that cookery and woodwork ought to be chucked out of the schools."
"But, man, what are schools for?" I saw a combative light in
Macdonald's eye.
"Creation, self-expression . . . . the only thing that matters in education. I don't care what a child is doing in the way of creation, whether he is making tables, or porridge, or sketches, or—or—"
"Snowballs!" prompted Macdonald.
"Or snowballs," I said. "There is more true education in making a snowball than in listening to an hour's lecture on grammar."
Mrs. Macdonald dropped her embroidery into her lap, with a little gasp at the heresy of my remark.