"A good point," I cried; "in other words you mean that no man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself, eh? Yes, that's quite true, but we don't know what the boy is to turn out. Given a home of comfort and food ... as every boy would have in a well-ordered community ... I think that the lad who could resist the attraction of a play-garden school with its charms of social intercourse with other children would be either a lunatic or a genius. Besides we have given up the idea in other departments. I expect that the community is of opinion that the teachings of Christianity are good for a man to hand on to his children, yet I don't think that the community would pass a law that every parent must send his family to a Sunday School. The whole trend of society is to recognise and provide for the conscientious objector, and society should certainly recognise the conscientious objector to school-going." "A boy doesn't know his own mind." "Neither do I," I sighed. "I can't make up my mind about anything; rather, I make up my mind to-day and change it to-morrow. And I don't want it to be otherwise; when my opinions become definite and fixed I shall be dead spiritually. The boy doesn't know his own mind! Well, how the deuce can I claim to help him to make it up when I can't make up my own? It's his mind, not mine. I don't mind telling him what I think of a subject, but I wouldn't compel him to do a blamed thing." "You have a queer idea of education," he said with a dry laugh. "Macdonald," I said, with real modesty, "I don't know that I have any idea of education. I am simply groping. I don't exactly know what I want, but I have a pretty definite notion of what I don't want ... and that is finality. I begin to think that what I want education to do is to train men not to make up their minds about anything." Macdonald rose to go. "Matrimony does that, old chap," he said with a chuckle, "and you'll soon discover that you won't get the chance of making up your mind ever." XIII.