A Dominie in Doubt Part 18

I left him to work out his problem. In the morning he solved it; Christo wouldn't lend him any rails, but if Tommy liked he, Christo, would run his line up to Tommy's town from the cla.s.s town. Tommy readily agreed. In a week's time Tommy's town was a suburb of the bigger town, and Tommy was appointed President of the whole state. He spent many an hour building his bridges and digging his tunnels. At first he would allow no one to enter his suburb, but in a few days he ceased to claim it as his own, and he worked as a member of the gang.

I think that most anti-social children are like Tommy: when their self-a.s.sertion is threatened they react with hostility. The cure for them is to direct their self-a.s.sertion to things instead of people. No boy will try to break up a ball game if he has a rabbit hutch to construct.

The danger is that the teacher will often step in when the boy ought to be left to his companions. The gang is the best disciplinarian.

One day a cla.s.s and I were writing five-minute essays. I would call out a word or a phrase, and we would all start to write. The children loved the method; it allowed so much play for originality. For example, when I gave the word "broken" one girl wrote of her broken doll, another of a broken tramp, another of a broken heart; a boy wrote a witty essay on being stoney broke, another wrote of a broken window.

On this day Wolodia, a boy of eleven, did not want to write essays. I called out a word, and we started to write. Wolodia began to talk loudly.

"Stop it, man," I said impatiently, "you're spoiling our essay."

He grinned and went on talking.

"Oh, shut up!" cried Joy.

"Shan't!" he snapped, and he went on talking.

Diana rose with a determined air.

"We'll chuck him out," she said grimly, and the cla.s.s seized him and heaved him out. Then they barricaded the door with desks. Wolodia made a big row by hammering on the door, and as a result we could not proceed with our writing.

"Let him in," I suggested.

The cla.s.s protested.

"He'll sit like a lamb for the rest of the period," I said.

They took away the desk and Wolodia came in. He went to his seat . . .

and not a sound came from him during the rest of the period. This incident impressed me greatly; my complaint, Joy's complaint did not affect him, but when the gang was against him he was defeated. It was a beautiful instance of the force of public opinion.

Cases of stealing should be treated by a.n.a.lysis. Moral lectures are useless; the cause lies in the unconscious, and the moral lecture does not touch the unconscious. Nor does punishment affect the root cause of the delinquency. The teacher must dig down into the child's unconscious in order to find the cause.

An illuminating book for all teachers and parents to read is Healy's _Mental Disorders and Misconduct_. He shows that stealing is very often a symptomatic act. The mechanism of many cases is something like this: a child has been punished for s.e.xual activities; later he breaks into a store and steals an article. s.e.x activities and thieving have this in common, that they are both forbidden, but the boy has found that much more ado is made about s.e.x activities than about stealing.

So when he is actuated by a s.e.xual urge he dare not indulge it; but his s.e.xual wish finds a subst.i.tute; it goes out to the a.s.sociated forbidden thing . . . the article on the store counter.

We see the same sort of mechanism in the neurotic patient; she fears her own s.e.x impulses, and because she dare not admit her s.e.x wishes into consciousness she projects her fear on to dogs or mice or rats.

All phobias--fear of closed places, fear of open places, fear of heights--are displaced fears; the sufferer is really afraid of his own unconscious wishes.

I do not say that all juvenile stealing is due to repressed s.e.x.

Stealing may mean to a boy a method of self-a.s.sertion; it may mean that thus he rebels against authority of father and teacher; it may be the result of any one of a dozen causes. But whatever the cause stealing is always a.s.sociated with unhappiness, and the teacher must try to cure the unhappiness.

In my _Dominie's Log_ I confessed that I liked to cheat the railway company, and I excused it on the ground that "a ten-mile journey without a ticket is the only romantic experience left in a drab world."

That was a delightful bit of rationalisation. The real reason for my delinquency lay in my unconscious. As a child I impotently rebelled against the authority of parents and teachers. Later in life I unconsciously identified the railway company with the authorities of my infancy. Authority said: "Don't do that or you will be smacked"; the railway company put up a notice saying: "Don't travel without a ticket or you'll be fined forty s.h.i.+llings."

My rebellion was really a rebellion against authority. This may seem to be a far-fetched explanation, but the fact remains that now that I have discovered the reason I have no more desire to cheat the railway company.

Old Jeems Broon was buried to-day, and Dauvit went to the funeral. He came back chuckling.

"What's the joke, Dauvit?" I asked.

"The burial service," laughed Dauvit. "You ken what sort o' a man Jeems was; an auld sinner if there ever was a sinner in Tarbonny, a bad auld sc.o.o.ndrel. Weel, Jeems hadna been at the kirk for twenty years, and of coorse the minister didna ken ony thing aboot him. So when he gave the funeral prayer he referred to auld Jeems as 'this holy man whose life stands as an example to those still tarrying in the flesh.'

Goad, but I burst oot laughin'! I did that!"

"Had I been the minister," said I, "I should certainly have made a few inquiries about Jeems."

"But there's a better story than that aboot the minister," went on Dauvit with a laugh. "Mag Currie's little la.s.sie had the diphtheria, and at the end o' the week the minister was asked to come oot to tak' a burial service in Mag's bed room. Man, he was eloquent! He spoke earnestly aboot this flower plucked before it had reached its full bloom, this innocent life so sadly cut off; he was most touchin' when he turned to Mag and her man and said: 'Mourn not for those hands that never did wrong, the lisping tongue that never spoke evil, the wide pure eyes that looked their love for you.'"

"I suppose the parents broke down at that," I said.

"Not they!" chuckled Dauvit, "for the corpse wasna their la.s.sie ava; it was auld Drucken Findlay the lodger."

I always like to hear Dauvit talk about ministers, and I encouraged him to go on.

"It's a very queer thing, dominie, that a body ay wants to laugh at the wrong time. In the kirk and at a funeral--that's when I want to laugh.

"I mind when the minister was awa' for his holidays, and there was an auld minister frae the Heelands cam' to tak' his place. This auld man had a habit o' readin' a verse and syne stoppin' to explain it to the congregation.

"Weel aweel, wan Sunday he was readin' a chapter frae the Auld Testament, and he cam' to the words: 'And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Hosea.' So he looks at the congregation ower his specs and he says: 'The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Hosea.' Now, prethren, we must ask ourselves this important question: Was Hosea afraid? No, Hosea was not afraid. _You_ would have been afraid, prethren; I would have been afraid. You and I would have begun to quake and tremble, but Hosea was not afraid; he was a prave man, a pold man. When we are in trouble let us remember that Hosea was not afraid.'

"So the auld man he turns ower the page and reads the next verse: 'And Hosea was sore afraid.'"

"What did he say then?" I asked.

"He was a cunnin' auld deevil," said Dauvit, "for he gave a bit cough and says: 'Prethren, that is a wrong translation from the original Hebrew.'"

"I don't think you like ministers, Dauvit," I said.

He paused in his efforts to place a new needle in his sewing-machine.

"No, man, I do not," he said slowly. "Nowadays the kirk is just a job like anything else; men go in for it for the loaves and fishes mostly, and their prayers never get past the roof. And as for the congregation, the kirk is just a respectable sort o' society. I tell ye, dominie, that releegion is deid. At least, Christianity is deid.

That was bound to come; flowers, folk, hooses, trees, horses, aye, and nations, have a birth, a youth, middle age, auld age, and then death.

It's the law o' nature, and a religion is no exception."

"True, O philosopher!" I said, "but there is always new life, and new life comes from the old. The flower dies and its seed lives; man dies and his seed inherit the earth. Christianity dies and--and what?"

"That may be," he said thoughtfully. "It may be that the new religion will grow from the seed o' the deid Christianity; that I canna say.

What I do say is that ministers are oot-o'-date; they are doin' useless labour . . . when they're no fis.h.i.+n' and curlin'."

VII.

Duncan came over to-night, and he asked my advice about books.

"What books would you advise a teacher to buy?" he asked.