And the amusing thing is that Duncan thinks himself one of the more advanced teachers. He reads the educational journals, and eagerly devours the articles about new methods in teaching arithmetic and geography. His school is only a mile and a half away, and I hope that he will come over to see Mac a few times while I am here.
I have seen the old type of dominie, and I have seen the new type. I prefer the former. He had many faults, but he usually managed to do something for the human side of the children. The new type is a danger to children. The old dominie leathered the children so that they might make a good show before the inspector; the new dominie leathers them because he thinks that children ought to be disciplined so that they may be able to fight the battle of life. He does not see that by using authority he is doing the very opposite of what he intends; he is making the child dependent on him, and for ever afterwards the child will lack initiative, lack self-confidence, lack originality.
What the new dominie does do is to turn out excellent wage-slaves. The discipline of the school gives each child an inner sense of inferiority . . . . what the psycho-analysts call an inferiority complex. And the working-classes are suffering from a gigantic inferiority complex . . . . otherwise they would not be content to remain wage-slaves. The fear that Duncan inspires in a boy will remain in that boy all his life. When he enters the workshop he will unconsciously identify the foreman with Duncan, and fear him and hate him. I believe that many a strike is really a vague insurrection against the teacher. For it is well known that the unconscious mind is infantile.
* * * * *
To-night I dropped in to see my old friend Dauvit Todd the cobbler. Many an evening have I spent in his dirty shop. Dauvit works on after teatime, and the village worthies gather round his fire and smoke and spit and grunt. I have sat there for an hour many a night, and not a single word was said. Peter Smith the blacksmith would give a great sigh and say: "Imphm!" There would be silence for ten minutes, and then Jake Tosh the roadman would stare at the fire, shake his head, and say: "Aye, man!" Then a ploughman would smack his lips and say: "Man, aye!" A southerner looking in might have jumped to the conclusion that the assembly was collectively and individually bored, but boredom never enters Dauvit's shop. We Scots think better in crowds.
To-night the old gang was there. The hypothetical southerner again would have marvelled at the reception I received. I walked into the shop after an absence of five years.
"Weel, Dauvit," I said, and sat down in the basket chair. Dauvit and I have never shaken hands in our lives. He looked up.
"Back again!" he said, without any evident surprise; then he added:
"And what like a nicht is 't ootside?"
Gradually other men dropped in, and the same sort of greeting took place. The weather continued to be discussed for a time. Then the blacksmith said: "Auld Tarn Davidson's swine dee'd last nicht."
Dauvit looked up from the boot he was repairing.