They arrived to-night, and Mrs. Mac gave a gasp of delight.
Mac tried to frown, but he could not manage it. Both protested against
what they called my idiotic kindness, but their protests were
half-hearted.

It is a strange thing that money itself is considered a sordid thing.
Why should Mac refuse five pounds with anger, and accept a ten pound gift
with pleasure? If anyone wants to study the psychological meaning of
money I recommend Chapter XL. in Dr. Ernest Jones' _Psycho-analysis_. In
the unconscious, at any rate, money is assuredly "filthy lucre."

* * * * *

A teacher should know very little about the subject he professes to
teach. In my London school I succeeded a line of excellent teachers of
drawing. I had not been long in the school when Di, aged 15, looked over
my shoulder one day and said: "Rotten! You can't draw for nuts!"

A week later Malcolm looked at a water colour of mine.

"You've got a horrible sense of colour," he said brightly.

Then I began to wonder why everyone in school was much more keen on
drawing and painting than they had ever been in the days of the skilled
teachers. The conclusion I came to was that my bad drawing encouraged
the children. I remembered the beautiful copy-book headlines of my
boyhood, and I recalled the hopelessness of ever reaching the standard
set by the lithographers. No child should have perfection put before
him. The teacher should never try to teach; he should work alongside the
children; he should be a co-worker, not a model.

Most teachers set themselves on a pedestal. They think that they lose
dignity if they are not able to answer every question that a child puts
to them. One result is that the child develops a dangerous inferiority
complex. I knew one boy who was a duffer at mathematics. His weakness
was due to the inferiority he felt when he saw the learned mathematical
master juggle with figures as easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard
balls. The little chap lost all hope, and when he worked problems he
worked solely to escape punishment.

The difficulty is that if a teacher works at a subject year after year he
is bound to become an expert. The only remedy I can think of is to make
each teacher take up a new subject at the beginning of every school year.
By the time that he had been master of Mathematics, History, Drawing,
English, French, German, Latin, Geography, Chemistry, Physics,
Psychology, Physiolo