I spent an evening with an Industrial School boy of thirteen not long ago. It was an unlovely tale he told me of his life in school. I got the impression of a building half-prison, half-barracks. No one was allowed to go out unless to football matches when the school team was playing. Punishment was stern and frequent.
"One old guy, 'e sends you to the boss for punishment and says you gave 'im an insubordinate look, and you ain't allowed to deny wot 'e says."
"Look here, Jim," I said, "suppose I took you to a free school to-morrow, a school where you could do what you liked, what's the first thing you would do?"
A wild look came into his eyes.
"I'd lay out the blarsted staff," he said tensely.
"But," I laughed, "what would be the point of laying me out if I gave you freedom? What have you got against me?"
"Oh," he said, "I thought you meant if I got freedom in the Industrial
School!"
That school is condemned; if a school produces one boy who hates and fears its teachers, it is a bad school.
I think of the other way, the Homer Lane way.
Homer Lane was superintendent of the little Commonwealth in Dorset. He attended the juvenile courts and begged the magistrates to hand over to him the worst cases they had. He took the children down to Dorset and gave them freedom. He refused to lay down any laws, and naturally the beginning of the Commonwealth was chaos. Lane joined in the anti-social behaviour; he became one of the gang. When the citizens thought that their best way of expressing themselves was to smash windows, Lane helped them to smash them. His marvellous psychological insight will best be illustrated by the story of Jabez.