"Wait till Aw get thae balls in, mother," he pleaded. "Come away to yer bed this meenute!" she bawled, "or Aw'll gie ye the biggest thrashin' ye ever got in yer life!" And the poor boy had to leave his cycle and obey. "What about this?" I said to the mother, and I pointed to the cycle. "He'd no business takin' it to bits," she shouted and she slammed the door. Poor lad! Between Macdonald and a mother like that he will live hardly. Each will break his will; each will insist on perfect obedience to arbitrary orders. I am honestly amazed at the small success I had with Jim. He was leaving my free school every night to go home to an atmosphere of anger and brutal stupidity. Now he is leaving his poor home every morning to go to the prison of Macdonald. No wonder the lad is lapsing. In a few years he will be a typical villager; he will stand at the brig of an evening and make caustic comments on the passers-by; he will sneer at everything and everybody. Macdonald is thinking about the answering Jim will do when the inspector comes; I was thinking of the Jim that would one day stand at the brig among his acquaintances. I didn't care a brass farthing what he learned or how much he attended; all I tried to do was to help him to be a fine man, a kindly man, a free man. I recollect a young teacher who visited my school one morning. "I should like to see you give a lesson," he said. "With pleasure," I replied. "What sort of lesson will it be?" he asked, "geography or history?" "I don't know," I said, and I turned to my bairns. "Why do rabbits have white tails?" I asked, and from that we wandered on through protective coloration and heredity to wolves and their fear of fire. We finished up with poetry, but I don't recollect how we got to it. When I had finished he pondered for a little. "It's all wrong," he said. "That boy in the corner was half asleep; four of these girls weren't really attending to you, and two girls left the room." "My fault," I said. "I took them to subjects they weren't interested in." "No," he said decidedly, "it was only your fault in not forcing them to sit up and attend." "But why should I?" I asked wearily. "Schooling is the beginning of the education we call life, and I want to make it as true to life as possible. In after life no one compels my attention or yours. We can sleep in church and we can sleep at a political meeting. We learn lots of things but we are interested in them. Tell me, what boy in this room answered best?" He pointed to a boy of twelve. "I agree," I said, and I called the boy to my desk. "Hugh," I said, "kindly tell this gentleman how long you have been at school." "A week, sir," he replied. "What school did you come from?" asked the visitor. "I never was at any school in my life," he said, "my father lives in a caravan and I never was long enough in a place to go to school."