ds that Authority is fatal
for the child; suppression is bad; the only way is to allow the child
freedom to express itself in the way it wants to. And because I count
among my friends boys and girls who once went to the Little
Commonwealth as criminals, I believe that Lane is right. I also
believe that the schools will come to see that he was right . . .
somewhere about the year 2500.

* * * * *

Conversation to-night in Dauvit's shop turned on Spiritualism. Dauvit
is a firm believer, and he often goes to Dundee and Aberdeen to attend
seances.

"It's just a lot o' blethers," said Jake Tosh contemptuously. "When
ye're deid ye're deid, and that's a' aboot it. Na, na, Dauvit, them
that sees ghosts is either drunk or daft."

"That's just yer ignorance, Jake," said Dauvit. "Do ye ken whaur
Brazil is?"

"Wha is he?" asked Jake puzzled.

"It's no a he; it's a place. I asked ye that question just to prove
that a man that doesna ken his ain world canna speak wi' ony authority
o' the next world. Yer mind's ower narrow, Jake; ye've no vision."

"Na, na, Dauvit," laughed Jake, "it winna do. Spooks and things is
just a curran nonsense, and no sane man wud believe in them. What do
you say, dominie?"

"I am willing to believe that the dead do communicate," I said.

Jake was thoroughly amused.

"It's a queer thing," he said musingly, "that the more eddication a man
has the more he believes in rubbish. Here's Dauvit here, a man that
reads Shakespeare and Burns and Carlyle, and the dominie there that
went through a college, and the both o' you believe things that I
stoppit believin' when I was sax year auld. Then there's Sir Oliver
Lodge, and Conan Doyle. Oh, aye, the Bible was quite richt when it
said: Much learning hath made them mad."

"What do you think happens to the dead, Jake?" I asked.

"As the tree falleth so it lies," quoted Jake. "There's only the twa
places after death; if ye're good ye go to Heaven; if ye're bad ye go
to Hell. And that's why I say that thae messages from the deid are
rubbish, cos if a man's in Heaven he's no going to leave a place like
that to come doon to speak to a daft auld cobbler like Dauvit in a wee
room doon in Dundee. And if a man's in Hell the Devil will tak good
care that he doesna get oot."

I wondered to find that Dauvit had no answer to this. I guessed that
Dauvit's silence was due to his early training. He was brought up in
the old s