A Dominie in Doubt Part 11
"An excellent song! Then there is the well-known phrase 'Once in a Blue Moon,' and innumerable songs about the pale moonlight. Also I once knew a man who had the blue devils."
I tried to think of other phases of blueness, but my stock was almost exhausted.
"Of course," I added, "I am not forgetting the other blues, the Oxford blues, Reckitt's Blue, Blue Coupons, and--and--I'm afraid I can't think of any other blues just at the moment."
The old man drew the back of his hand over his mouth.
"There's the 'Blue Bonnets' up at the tap o' the brae," he suggested thirstily.
"Good idea!" I cried, "come on!" and together we climbed the brae.
A friend of mine in London has written me asking if I will write an article on Co-education for an educational journal, in which she is interested. I replied: "I can't see where the problem comes in; to a Scot co-education is not a thing that has to be supported by argument; he accepts it as he accepts the law of gravitation."
I wonder why English people are so afraid of co-education. To this day schools like Bedales, King Alfred's, Harpenden, and Arundale are reckoned as crank schools. The great middle-cla.s.s of England believes in segregation. Even Dr. Ernest Jones, the most prominent Freudian psycho-a.n.a.lyst in England, appears to be afraid of it.
I can only conjecture that Jones agrees with the middle and upper cla.s.ses in a.s.sociating s.e.x with sin. I have never tried to think out my reasons for believing in co-education; possibly the true reason is that having grown up in a co-education atmosphere, co-education has become a part of me just as my Scots accent has. In other words, I may have a co-education complex. If that is so, my arguments will be mere rationalisations, but I give them for what they are worth.
We are all born with a strong s.e.x instinct, and this instinct must find expression in some way. We know that the s.e.x energy can be sublimated, that is, raised to a higher power. For instance, the creative s.e.x urge may be directed to the making of a bookcase, or the making of a century at cricket. But I know of no evidence to prove that all the instinct can be sublimated. An adolescent may spend his days at craftwork and games, but he will have erotic dreams at nights. All the drawing and painting in the world will not prevent his having emotion when he looks at the face of a pretty girl.
In our segregation schools boys and girls see nothing of each other. The unsublimated s.e.x instinct finds expression in h.o.m.os.e.xuality, that is the emotion that should go to the opposite s.e.x is fixed on a person of the same s.e.x. I admit that we are all more or less h.o.m.os.e.xual; otherwise there could be no friendship between man and man, or woman and woman. In our boarding schools the s.e.x instinct often takes the road of auto-eroticism.
In a co-education school the s.e.x impulse is directed to one of the opposite s.e.x. This attachment is nearly always a romantic ideal attachment. I have never known a case that went the length of kissing; among little children at a rural school, yes; at the age of seven I kissed my first sweetheart; but among adolescents I find that neither the boy nor the girl has the courage to kiss. Theirs is a sublimated courtship; they never use the word Love; they talk about "liking So-and-so."
That at many co-education schools this romantic attachment is more or less an underground affair is due to the moral att.i.tude of teachers.
They pride themselves on the beautiful s.e.xless attachments of their pupils; they give moral lectures on the subject of kissing, and naturally every pupil in school at once becomes painfully self-conscious on the subject. The truth is that many co-educationists do not in their hearts believe in the system; they still see sin in s.e.x.
To be a thorough success the co-education school must include s.e.x education in its curriculum. The children of the most advanced parents seldom get it at home, and they come to school with the old att.i.tude to s.e.x. s.e.x education does not mean telling children where babies come from; it should dwell mostly on the psychological side of the question.
The child ought to learn the truth about its s.e.x instinct. Most important of all, the child who has indulged in auto-eroticism ought to be helped to get rid of his or her sense of guilt. This sense of guilt is the primary evil of self-abuse; abolish it, and the child is on the way to a self-cure.
How many children can go to their teacher and make confession of s.e.x troubles? Very few. It is the teachers' fault; they set themselves up as moralists, and a moralist is a positive danger to any child.
Not long ago I was addressing a meeting of teachers in south London. At question time a woman challenged me.
"You have condemned moralists," she said; "do you mean to say that you would never teach a child the difference between right and wrong?"
"Never," I answered, "for I do not know what is right and what is wrong."
"Then I think you ought not to be a teacher," she said.
"I know what is right for me, and wrong for me," I went on to explain, "but I do not know what is right and wrong for you. Nor do I presume to know what is right or wrong for a child."
I was pleasingly surprised to find that the meeting roared approval of my reply.
Macdonald had to attend a funeral to-day, and he asked me if I would take his cla.s.ses for an hour. I gladly agreed.
"Give them a lesson on psychology," he said; "it will maybe improve their behaviour."
I went over to the school at two o'clock, and Mac introduced me, although I had already made friends with most of the children in the playground and the fields. Mac then went away and I sat down at his desk.
"We'll have a talk," I said, "just a little friendly talk between you and me. I want to hear your opinions on some things."
They looked at me with interest.
"Why," I said, "why do you sit quiet in school?"
Andrew Smith put up his hand.
"Please, sir, 'cause if we don't the mester gies us the strap."
"A very sound reason, too," I commented. "And now I want to ask you why you sometimes want to throw papers or slate-pencils about the room."
"Please, sir, we never do that," said little Jeannie Simpson.
"The mester wud punish us," said another girl.
"But," I cried, "surely one of you has thrown things about the room?"
Tom Murray, the bad boy of the school (according to Mac), put up his hand.
"Please, sir, I did it once, but the mester licked me."
"Why did you do it, Tom?"
Tom thought hard.
"I didna like the lesson," he said simply.
I then went on further.
"Now I want you all to think this out: was Tom being selfish when he threw paper, or was he unselfish?"
Everyone, Tom included, judged that the paper-throwing was a selfish act.
"I don't agree," I said. "Tom was trying to do a service to the others; you were all bored by a lesson, and Tom stepped in and took your attention. Unfortunately he also attracted the attention of Mr.
Macdonald, but that has nothing to do with Tom's reason for doing it.
Tom was the most unselfish of the lot of you; he showed more good than any of you."
"The mester didna think that!" said Tom, with a grin.
Peter Wallace carefully rolled a paper pellet and threw it at Tom.
"Now," I said with a smile, "let's think this out; why did Peter throw that pellet just now?"
"Because the cla.s.s is bored," said a little girl, and there was a good laugh at my expense.