I have been considering the subject of school magazines, and I wonder whether it would be possible to run a school magazine here. I have had no experience with a school magazine, but I edited a university weekly for a year. It wasn\'t a success. I wrote yellow editorials and placarded the quadrangles with flaring bills which screamed "Liars!" "Are School Teachers Socially Impossible?" "The Peril and the Pity of the Princes Street Parade," at the undergraduates passing by. It was of no use. No one bothered to reply to my philippics, and I had to sit down and write scathing replies to my own articles. I could never bring my circulation up to the watermark of a previous editor who had written editorials on such bright topics as "The Medical Congress" and "The Work of the International Academic Committee."
In Edinburgh the students are indifferent to their \'varsity magazine, but in St. Andrews[Pg 193] the publication of College Echoes is the event of the week. The reason is that the St. Andrew\'s students form a small happy family; if a reference is made to Bejant Smith everyone understands it. If you mentioned Bejant Smith in the Edinburgh Student no one would know whom you were referring to.
The success of College Echoes gives me the idea of a school magazine that would succeed. A magazine for my hundred and fifty bairns would be useless; what I want is a magazine for parents and children. It would be issued weekly, and would mingle school gossip with advice. If Willie Wilson knew that Friday\'s edition might contain a paragraph to the effect that he had been discovered murdering two young robins, I fancy that he would think twice before he cut their heads off.
I imagine entries like the following:—
"Peter Thomson said on Thursday that it was Lloyd George who said \'Father, I cannot tell a lie,\' and he was caned by the master who, by the way, has just been appointed President of the Conservative Association."
"Mary Brown was late every morning this week."
[Pg 194]
"John Mackenzie is at present gathering potatoes at Mr. Skinnem\'s farm, and is being paid a shilling a day of ten hours. Mr. Skinnem has been made an elder of the Parish Kirk."
Someone has said that the most arresting piece of literature is your own name in print. That is true, although I suppose that the thrill wears off when you become as public as Winston Churchill or Charlie Chaplin. Why shouldn\'t the bairns experience this thrill? When I write the report of a local concert for the local papers I always give prominence to the children who performed. Incidentally, when I have sung at a concert I omit all reference to my part; I hate to remind the audience that I sang. I am a true altruist in both cases.
Publicity is the most pleasing thing in life, and that\'s why patent medicines retain their popularity. At present the village cobbler is figuring in the local paper as a "Cured by Bunkum\'s Bilious Backache Bunion Beans" example, and beneath his photograph (taken at the age of nineteen; he is fifty-four now) is a glowing testimonial which begins with these words:—"For over[Pg 195] a decade I have suffered from an excess of Uric Acid, from Neurotic Dyspepsia, and from Optical Derangements. Until I discovered that marvellous panacea...."
I marvel at his improved literary style; it is only a month since he wrote me as follows:—"Sir, i will be oblidged if you will let peter away at three oclock tonight hoping that you are well as this leaves me i am your obidt servent peter Macannish."
The magazine would also contain interesting editorials for the parents. Art would have a prominent place; if a bairn made a good sketch or a bonny design it would be reproduced.
Of course, the idea cannot be carried out for lack of funds. Yet I fancy that the money now spent on hounds and pet dogs would easily run a magazine for every school in Scotland.
The technical difficulties could easily be overcome. The bigger bairns could read the proofs and paste up the magazine, and the teachers would revise it before sending it to the printers.
I must get estimates from the printers, and[Pg 196] if they are moderate I shall try to raise funds by giving a school concert.
* * *
I see that the Educational Institute is advertising for a man who will combine the post of Editor of The Educational News with the office of Secretary to the Institute. The salary is ￡450 per annum.
This combining of the offices seems to me a great mistake. For an editor should be a literary man with ideas on education, while a good secretary should be an organizer. Because a man can write columns on education, that is no proof that he is the best man to write to the office washerwoman telling her not to come on Monday because it is a holiday.
I could edit the paper (I would take on the job for a hundred a year and the sport of telling the other fellow that his notions of education were all wrong), but I couldn\'t organise a party of boys scouts. Kitchener is a great organiser, but I shouldn\'t care for the editorials of The New Statesman if he were editor.
I think that the Institute does not want a[Pg 197] man with ideas. It wants a man who will mirror the opinions of the Institute. To do this is a work of genius, for the Institute has no opinions. No man can represent a body of men. Suppose the Institute decides by a majority that it will support the introduction of "Love" as a subject of the curriculum. The editor may be a misogynist, or he may have been married eight times, yet the poor devil has to sit down and write an editorial beginning: "Love has too long been absent from our schools. Who does not remember with holy tenderness his first kiss?..."
A paper can be a force only when it is edited by a man of force and personality. A man who writes at the dictation of another is a tenth-rater. That, of course, is why our press says nothing.
* * *
Little Mary Brown was stung by a wasp the other day as she sat in the class.
"Henceforward," I said, "the wasp that enters this room is to be slain. Tom Macintosh I appoint you commander in chief."
I begin to think that I prefer the wasp to the campaign against it. T............