A Dominie in Doubt Part 15

I want to meet Smart again. I like his style.

I am indeed a Dominie in Doubt. What is education striving after? I cannot say, for education is life and what the aim of life is no one knows. Psycho-a.n.a.lysis can clear up a life; it can release bottled up energy, but it cannot say how the released energy is to be used. The a.n.a.lyst cannot advise, because no man can tell another how to live his life. Freud clears up the past, but he cannot clear up the future.

Is there such a thing as Re-incarnation? I wonder. Am I living the life that my past lives on earth fitted me for? If so a.n.a.lysis is wrong. If I am suffering from a severe neurosis it is because I earned this punishment in my past lives, and Freud has no right to cure me.

He is interfering with the plans of the Almighty. If, as I have heard a Theosophist declare, the children in the slums are miserable because they failed to learn their lesson in previous lives, then the people who try to abolish slums are all wrong. I think my Theosophist would argue that the charitable person is growing in grace, thereby rising above his previous lives. And thus one soul helps another to rise to perfection. It may be, and I hope it is so, for then life would have a meaning. Pain and war would then be less terrible, for they would be but incidents in the eternal unfolding of perfection.

Yet I find myself doubting. If I am William Shakespeare born again I do not know it, and I am left in doubt as to whether I may not have been Charles Peace instead. Possibly I was both.

Then there is psychical research. I have been to a medium and have heard things that all the psycho-a.n.a.lysis in the world cannot account for. I want to believe that the dead can speak to us, but where are the dead? I have read Sir Oliver Lodge's _Raymond_, and the description of the next world given there. Frankly I don't fancy it, and I have no desire to go there.

How then can I attempt to educate children when the ultimate solution of life is denied me? I can only stand by and give them freedom to unfold. I do not know whither they are going, but that is all the more a reason why I ought not to try to guide their footsteps. This is the final argument for the abolition of authority. We may beat and break a horse because we selfishly require a horse's service, and according to the accepted view a horse has no immortal soul. We dare not beat and break a child, for a child is going to an end that we cannot know.

I like the Theosophist schools, although I do not like all Theosophists. Some of them seem to be living the higher life consciously, and repressing their lower natures. Most of them do not smoke or drink or eat meat or swear or go to music-halls. That may be living on a higher plane, but it is not living fully. Still, in many ways they are broad-minded. In their schools they do not force Theosophy down the children's throats; they allow a great amount of freedom, but their schools are not free schools. There is a definite attempt to mould character chiefly by insisting on good taste. I am quite sure that no head-master of a Theosophical School would take his children to see a Charlie Chaplin film. Charlie is not obviously living the higher life; he stands for the vulgar side of life; he picks up girls and gets drunk (in the play) and is sea-sick and very vulgar about soda-water.

I find myself insisting on the inclusion of Charlie in any scheme of education because no one ought to be taught to be shocked at sea-sickness and soda-water squirting. Charlie to me is the antidote to the higher-plane crowd; he and his kind are as essential as Sh.e.l.ley.

I admit that reading Sh.e.l.ley is a higher kind of pleasure than watching "Champion Charlie," but no human being can safely live on the higher plane, and no child wants to. Education must deal with _all_ life; a higher plane diet will produce hot-house plants, beautiful perhaps, but delicate and artificial.

Old Willie Murray the cobbler had been bed-ridden for over a year, and when I dropped into Dauvit's shop this morning Mary Rickart was telling Dauvit that his old master was dead.

"Aye, Dauvit," she was saying when I entered, "I'm no the kind that speaks ill o' the deid, but I will say this, that Wull Murray had his faults. Aye, and though he's a corp the day, I canna pertend that he was ony freend o' mine."

When Mary had gone Dauvit turned to me with a queer smile.

"Dominie, you tell me that you have studied the science o' the mind, psy--what is't you call it?"

"Psychology," I said.

"That's the word. Weel then, dominie, just tell me why Mary Rickart had sic a pick at auld Willie Murray."

I smoked for a time thoughtfully.

"It's difficult, Dauvit. I haven't got enough evidence. However I think I can make a good guess."

"Weel?"

"Mary and Willie sat in the same cla.s.s at school?"

"Good!" said Dauvit, "they did."

"And Mary was Willie's first sweetheart?"

"Imphm!"

"Mary loved Willie and he loved her. They were sweethearts for a long time, but another damsel came and stole Willie's heart away. Mary wept bitter tears, but in time she repressed her love . . . and it changed into hate."

Dauvit chuckled.

"A very nice story," he said, "but, ye ken, it's just a story. You cudna guess the real reason why Mary hated him so much."

"Then what was the real reason, Dauvit?"

He laughed.

"Mary hated Willie Murray because he aince telt her that she was a silly woman to think that she cud wear a number fower shoe on a number acht foot."

We laughed together, and then I said:

"Dauvit, why did you never marry? You like women I fancy."

My remark made him thoughtful.

"Man," he said, "I've often speered the same question o' mysel. As a young man I was gye fond o' the la.s.sies, but . . . I dinna ken!" and he broke off suddenly and took up a boot. "Thae soles are just paper noo-a-days," he growled.

I refused to let him run away from the subject.

"Had you a sweetheart?" I asked.

He laughed boisterously to hide his confusion.

"Dozens o' them!" he cried.

"Then why didn't you marry one of them?"

He shook his head.

"Dominie, that's the question." He stared at the grate for a while.

"There was Maggie Adams, a bonny la.s.sie she was. Man, I mind when I took her to Kirriemair Market . . ." He sighed. "Aye, man, dominie, I liked Maggie mair than ony o' the others."

"Did she love someone else?" I asked softly.

Dauvit took some time to reply.

"No, man, Maggie wanted me."

"Then the fault lay on your side? You didn't love her!"

Dauvit brought his hand down on the board.

"Goad, man, but I did!"

I could not understand.

"Man, on the road hame frae Kirrie Market I was to speer if she wud marry me . . . but I didna."