"You have judged yourselves," I said, "and according to your own showing you as a class are 87 per cent. selfish and 13 per cent. unselfish." This essay in composition was not original; I got the idea from Homer Lane, who claimed that it was the best introduction to school psychology. "It is the best way to make children think of their own behaviour," he said, and my experiment has shown this. When Mac came back I said to him; "You've got a fine lot of bairns, Mac." "Had you any difficulty?" he asked. "What do you mean?" "Oh, I half thought they would try to pull your leg, especially a boy like Tom Murray. He is a most difficult chap, you know." "Tom's a saint," I said; "every child is a saint if you treat him as an equal. No, I had no difficulty, but I want you to send over Geordie Wylie to me this afternoon. There is something wrong with that boy; he has no ambition and he has one of the worst inferiority complexes I have ever struck. I want to have a quiet talk with him." Mac promised, and at three o'clock Geordie came over to the schoolhouse. I took him into the parlour, and he sat nervously on the edge of a chair. "Tell me about yourself, Geordie," I said, but he did not answer. "Do you keep rabbits?" "Aye." "What kind?" "Twa Himalayas and a half Patty." "Keep doos?" "No." It was like drawing blood from a milestone. "What do you do when you go home at nights?" It was a long difficult task to get anything out of him. The only fact of value I got was that he was a great reader of Wild West stories. I asked him to come to me again, and he said he would. To-night I asked Mac about him. "He's a dreamer," said Mac, "and he's lazy. I am always strapping him for inattention. He's not a manly boy, never plays games, always stands in a corner of the playground." "Does he ever fight?" I asked. "He's a great coward, but there's one queer thing about him; when any boy challenges him to fight he goes white about the gills but he always fights . . . and gets licked." "Mac," I said, "will you do me a favour? Don't whack him again; it is the worst treatment you can give him. He is a poor wee chap, and he is badly in need of real help." "All right," said the kindly Mac, "I'll try not to touch him, but he irritates me many a time." * * * * * I had Geordie for an hour this morning. He was taciturn at first, but later he talked freely. He is very much afraid of his father, and he weeps when his father scolds him. This makes the father angrier and he calls Geordie a lassie, a greetin' lassie. This jeer wounds the boy deeply. He is afraid in the dark. He told me that he was puzzled about one thing; when he goes for his milk at night he is never afraid on the outward journey, but when he leaves the dairy to come home he is always in terror. I asked him what he was afraid of and he told me that he always imagined that there was a man in a cheese-cutter cap waiting to murder him.