Part 3 (1/2)

”I have no illusions about myself at all, old chap I knowme why you are a bit of a nut?” I asked

”It isn't usual for a country do collar, a bow tie, and shot-silk socks”

”That's easy,” he said quickly ”I think that teachers haven't the social standing they ought to have, and I dress well to uphold the dignity of the profession Don't you believe me?” he demanded as I smiled

”Quite! I believe you're quite honest in your belief, but it's wrong you know There must be a much more personal reason than that”

”Rot!” he said ”Anyhat is the reason?”

”I don't know, Mac; it would take months of research to discover it I can't explain your psychology, but I'll tell you sowhen I bought them someone asked me why I chose corduroy, and I at once answered: 'Economy! They'll last ten years!' But that wasn't the real reason, I bought theot an inferiority co of inferiority To coo and order a suit that will make people look at ain a feeling of outward superiority”

This sent Mac off into a roar of laughter

”You're daft, man!” he roared

After a minute or two he said; ”But what has all this to do with Tom Murray?”

”A lot,” I said seriously ”You think you whack Tom because you must have discipline, but you whack him for a different reason In your deep unconscious mind you are an infant You want to show your self-assertion just as a kid does You leather Toe On market-day, when Tom walks behind a drove and whacks the stots over the hips with a stick, he is doing exactly what you did this afternoon You are both infants”

I have had to give up lecturing Mac, for he always takes ood fellow, but he has the wonderful gift of being blind to anything that ht make him reconsider his values Many people protect the I have h heartily at his wrecked home and lost job

II

What an a

Toy and initiative, but he has to sit passive at a desk doing work that does not interest hi the day, and naturally when free frohts he expresses his creative interest anti-socially He nearly wrecked the five-twenty the other night; he tied a huge iron bolt to the rails Mac called it devilment, but it was s flattened on the line, and he wanted to see what the engine really could do

There is devilment in some of Tom's activities, for example in his deliberate destruction of Dauvit's apple tree Mac and the laould give him the birch for that, but fortunately Mac and the law don't knoho did it Tom's destructiveness is only the direct result of Mac's authority Suppression always has the sa devil Had I Toood

And yet nearly every teacher believes in Mac's way They suppress all the time, and what is worst of all they fir

”Look at Glasgow!” cried Mac the other night when I was talking about the cri the war? Juvenile crime increased And why? Because the fathers were in the army and the boys had no control over them; they broke loose

That proves that your theories are potty”

I believe that juvenile cri the war, and I believe that Mac's explanation of the phenoave the boy liberty to be a hooligan But no boy wants to be a hooligan unless he has a strong rebellion against authority No boy is destructive if he is free to be constructive I think that the difference between Mac and inal sin, while I believe in original virtue

I wonder why it is so difficult to convert the authority people to the neay of thinking Thereto their authority Authority gives much power, and love of power may be at the root of the desire to retain authority Yet I fancy that it is deeper than that In Mac, for instance, I think that his quickness in becory at Tom's insubordination is due to the insubordination within himself Like most of us Mac has a father complex, and he fears and hates any authority exercised over hi To the rebellion in his own soul Toot rid ofin , for tooto it as a prop Most people like to have their minds made up for them; it is so easy to obey orders, and so difficult to live your own life carrying your own burden and finding your own path To live your own life

that is the ideal To discover yourself bravely, to realise yourself fully, to follow truth even if the crowd stone you That is livingbut it is dangerous living, for that way lies crucifixion