On the same page he says: "The constructive Socialist logically declares the teacher master of the situation."
If the Teachers are masters of the situation I wish every teacher in Scotland would get The New Age each week. Orage's Notes of the Week are easily the best commentary on the war I have seen. The New Age is so very amusing, too; its band of "warm young men" are the kind who "can't stand Nietzsche because of his damnable philanthropy" as a journalist friend of mine once phrased it. They despise Shaw and Wells and Webb ... the old back-numbers. The magazine is pulsating with life and youth. Every contributor is so cock-sure of himself. It is the only fearless journal I know; it has no advertisements, and with advertisements a journal is muzzled.
* * *
One or two bairns are going to try the bursary competition of the neighbouring Secondary School, and I have just got hold of the last year's papers.
"Name an important event in British History for each of any eight of the following years:—1314, 1688, 1759, &c." ... and Wells says that teaching is the most creative profession of all!
"Write an essay of twenty lines or so on any one of these subjects:—School, Holidays, Examinations, Bursaries, Books." The examiners might have added a few other bright interesting topics such as Truth, Morals, Faith, Courage.
"Name the poem to which each of the following lines belongs, and add, if you can, the next line in each case, &c." There are ten lines, and I can only spot six of them. And I am, theoretically, an English scholar; I took an Honours English Degree under Saintsbury. But my degree is only a second class one; that no doubt accounts for my lack of knowledge.
That the compilers of the paper are not fools is shown by the fact that they ask a question like this:—"A man loses a dog, you find it; write and tell him that you have found it."
The Arithmetic paper is quite good. My bairns are to fail; I simply cannot teach them to answer papers like these.