"Discuss Spenser's idea of chivalry, and state what you think would be his opinion on table manners, Soho, or any slum you know, "the Present State of Ireland." "What would Burns have thought of the prevalence of the kilt among the Semitic inhabitants of Scotland? Is Burns greater than Harry Lauder? Tell me why you think he isn't or is." "Discuss the following humorists and alleged humorists:--Dickens, Jacobs, Lauder, Jerome, Leacock, Storer Clouston, Wells (in _Kipps_, and _Mr. Polly_), Locke (in _Septimus_), Bennett (in _The Card_), Mark Twain, your class teacher, the average magistrate." "If you have not read any humour at all, write a humorous dialogue between a brick and the mongrel dog it came in contact with." I hold that my exam. paper would discover any genius knocking about in ignorance of his or her powers. I intend to offer it to the Department ... when I am out of the profession. * * * It is extremely difficult for any teacher to keep from getting into a rut. The continual effort to make things simple and elementary for children is apt to deaden the intellect. To-night I felt dull; I simply couldn't think. So I took up a volume of Nietzsche, and I now know the remedy for dullness. Nietzsche is a genius; he dazzles one ... and he almost persuades. To-night I am doubting. Is my belief in a great democracy all wrong? Is it true that there is a slave class that can never be anything else? Is our Christian morality a slave morality which is evolving the wrong type of human? I think of the pity and kindness which is making us keep alive the lunatic and the incurable; I am persuaded to believe that our hospitals are in the long run conducing to an unfit race. Unfit physically; but unfit mentally? Is Sandow the Superman? Will Nietzsche's type of Master man with his physical energy and warlikeness prove to be the best? I think that the journalists who are anathematising Nietzsche are wrong; I don't believe the Kaiser ever read a line of his. But I think that every German is subconsciously a believer in energy and "Master Morality"; Nietzsche was merely one who realised his nature. The German religion is undoubtedly the religion of the Old Testament; to them "good" is all that pertains to power; their God is the tyrant of the Old Testament. Nietzsche holds that the New Testament code of morals was invented by a conquered race; the poor were meek and servile, and they looked forward to a time when they would be in glory while the rich man frizzled down below. No man can scorn Nietzsche; you are forced to listen to him. Only fools can dismiss him with the epithet "Madman!" But I cannot follow him; I believe that if pity and kindness are wrong, then wrong is right. Yet I see that Nietzsche is wise in saying that there must always be one stone at the top of the pyramid. The question is this:--Will a democracy always be sure to choose the right man? I wonder.