I have not used the strap all this week, and if my liver keeps well, I hope to abolish it altogether. To-day I have been thinking about punishment. What is the idea of punishment? A few months ago a poor devil of an engine-driver ran his express into a goods, and half-a-dozen people were killed. He got nine months. Why? Is his punishment meant to act as a deterrent? Will another driver say to himself: "By Jove, I'll better not wreck my train or I'll get nine months." Nine months is not punishment, but the lifelong thought: "I did it," is hell. I am trying to think why I punished Lizzie Smith for talking last Friday. Bad habit, I expect. Yet it acted as a deterrent; it showed that I was in earnest about what I was saying--I was reading the war news from the _Scotsman_. I am sorry that I punished her; it was weakness on my part, weakness and irritation. If she had no interest in the war, why should she pretend that she had? But no, I cannot have this. I must inculcate the idea of a community; the bairn must be told that others have rights. I often want to rise up and contradict the minister in kirk, but I don't; the people have rights; they do not come out to listen to me. If I offend against the community, the community will punish me with ostracism or bitterness. We have all a right to live our own lives, but in living them we must live in harmony with the community. Lizzie must be told that all the others like the war news, and that in talking she is annoying them. Yes, I must remember to emphasise continually the idea of a corporate life. * * * I see that it is only the weak man who requires a strap. Lord Kitchener could rule my school without a strap, but I am not Kitchener. Moreover, I am glad I'm not. I do not want to be what is called a strong man. John Gourlay, in _The House with the Green Shutters_ was strong enough to rule every school in Scotland with Sir John Struthers superadded; yet I do not want to be Gourlay. His son would have been a better teacher, for he was more human. Possibly Kitchener is very human; I do not know. II. I heard a blackie this morning as I went to school, and when I came near to the playground I heard the girls singing. And I realised that Lenten was come with love to Town. The game was a jingaring, and Violet Brown was in the centre. The wind and the wind and the wind blows high, The rain comes pattering from the sky. Violet Brown says she'll die For the lad with the rolling eye. She is handsome, she is pretty, She is the girl of the golden city; She is counted one, two, three, Oh! I wonder who he'll be. Willie Craig says he loves her....