"You see, Mac, what you do is this: you see a boy reading _Dead-wood Dick_, and you take his paper away from him and possibly whack the little chap for wasting his time. But you don't kill his interest in penny dreadfuls, and the result is that in later years he reads the Sunday paper that supplies the most lurid details of murders and outrages. My way is to encourage the lad to devour tales of blood and thunder so that in a short time blood and thunder have no more interest for him. The reason why most of the literature published to-day is tripe is that the public likes tripe, and it likes tripe because its infantile interest in tripe was suppressed in favour of Chaucer and Shakespeare." "But," cried Mac, "isn't Shakespeare better for him than tripe?" "Yes and no. If every poet were a Shakespeare the world would be a dull place; you need the tripe to form a contrast. The best way to enjoy the quintessence of roses, Mac, is to take a walk through the dung-heaps first." "What books would you advise your pupils to read?" asked Mac. "In their proper sequence . . . _Comic Cuts, Deadwood Dick, John Bull, Answers, Pearson's Weekly, Boy's Own Paper, Scout, Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, White Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Invisible Man,_ practically anything of Jack London, Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle, Kipling." "And serious literature?" "All literature is serious, Mac." "I mean Dr. Johnson, Swift, Bunyan, Milton, Dryden, and that lot," said Mac. I smiled. "Mac, I want you to answer this question: have you read Boswell's _Life of Johnson_?" "Extracts," he admitted awkwardly. "Bunyan's _Life and Death of Mr. Badman_?" "No." "Milton's _Areopagitica_?" "Er--no." "Swift's _Tale of a Tub_?" "No." I sighed. "Would you like to read them?" I asked. "I don't think they would interest me," he admitted. "Then in heaven's name, why expect children to have any interest in them? If these classics weren't shoved down children's throats the adult population of this country would be sitting of an evening reading and enjoying Milton instead of _John Bull_." Mac would not have this. "Children must read the classics so that they may get a good style," he said. "Style be blowed!" I cried. "The only way to get a style is by writing. Mac, I should cut out all the lectures about Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare, and let the children write during the English period . . . if I had periods, which I wouldn't. I don't want style from kiddies; I want to see them create in their own way. If they are free to create they will form their own style."