Before the tract arrived I thought of publishing the Log as a brilliant treatise on education. Its arrival altered all my values. I then knew that I was the educational equivalent of the "awful example" who sits on the platform at temperance meetings, and with great humility I besought Mr. Herbert Jenkins to publish my Log as a terrible warning to my fellow sinners. A. S. N. 1915. A DOMINIE'S LOG I. "No reflections or opinions of a general character are to be entered in the log-book."--Thus the Scotch Code. I have resolved to keep a private log of my own. In the regulation volume I shall write down all the futile never-to-be-seen piffle about Mary Brown's being laid up with the measles, and about my anxiety lest it should spread. (Incidentally, my anxiety is real; I do not want the school to be closed; I want a summer holiday undocked of any days.) In my private log I shall write down my thoughts on education. I think they will be mostly original; there has been no real authority on education, and I do not know of any book from which I can crib. To-night after my bairns had gone away, I sat down on a desk and thought. What does it all mean? What am I trying to do? These boys are going out to the fields to plough; these girls are going to farms as servants. If I live long enough the new generation will be bringing notes of the plese-excuss-james-as-I-was-washing type ... and the parents who will write them went out at that door five minutes ago. I can teach them to read, and they will read serials in the drivelling weeklies; I can teach them to write, and they will write pathetic notes to me by and bye; I can teach them to count, and they will never count more than the miserable sum they receive as a weekly wage. The "Three R's" spell futility. But what of the rest? Can I teach them drawing? I cannot. I can help a boy with a natural talent to improve his work, but of what avail is it? In their future homes they will hang up the same old prints--vile things given away with a pound of tea. I can teach them to sing, but what will they sing?... the _Tipperary_ of their day. My work is hopeless, for education should aim at bringing up a new generation that will be better than the old. The present system is to produce the same kind of man as we see to-day. And how hopeless he is. When first I saw Houndsditch, I said aloud: "We have had education for generations ... and yet we have this." Yes, my work is hopeless. What is the use of the Three R's, of Woodwork, of Drawing, of Geography, if Houndsditch is to remain? What is the use of anything? * * *