I tried an experiment to-day. I gave an exam. in History, and each pupil was allowed to use a text-book. The best one was first, she knew what to select. I deprecate the usual exam. system of allotting a prescribed time to each paper. Blyth Webster, the racy young lecturer in English in Edinburgh University, used to allow us an indefinite time for our Old English papers. I generally required a half hour to give him all I knew about Old English, but I believe that some students sat for five hours. Students write and think at different rates, and the time limit is always unjust.

I wish the Department would allow me to set the Higher Grade Leavings English papers for once. My paper would certainly include the following:—

"If Shakespeare came back to earth what do you think would be his opinion of Women\'s Suffrage (refer to [Pg 106]The Taming of the Shrew) Home Rule, Sweated Labour, the Kaiser?"

"Have you read any Utopia? If not, it doesn\'t matter; write one of your own. (Note ... a Utopia is an ideal country—this side the grave.)"

"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[Pg 107] 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?

[Pg 108]

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.

I found one arresting statement in the[Pg 109] book:—"If we have a degenerate mean environment, the fittest will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy and meanness; he will survive." That is what is happening now. I believe that the people will one day be capable of altering this basis of society; Nietzsche believed that the people are mostly of the slave variety, and that a better state of affairs could only come about through the breeding of Supermen ... masters. "The best shall rule," says he. Who are the best? I ask, and I really cannot answer myself.

*         *         *

As I go forward with these notes I find that I become more and more impelled to write down thoughts that can only have a remote connection with the education of children. I think the explanation lies in the fact that every day I realise more and more the futility of my school-work. Indeed, I find myself losing interest sometimes; I go through a lesson on Geography mechanically; in short, I drudge occasionally. But I always awake at Composition time.

I find it useless to do home correction; a bairn won\'t read the blue pencil marks. I must sit down beside him while I correct;[Pg 110] and this takes too much time ... from a timetable point of view.

But the mistakes in spelling and grammar are minor matters, what I look for are ideas. I never set a dull subject of the How-I-spent-my-holidays type; every essay must appeal to the imagination. "Suppose you go to sleep for a thousand years," I said, "and tell the story of your awaking." I asked my Qualifying to become invisible; most ............