ention this to show that children
of eleven and twelve can take their responsibilities seriously.

When I told the story to Macdonald he said: "But why didn't you join in
their noise?"

"For two reasons, Mac," I said. "Firstly these children were not under
the suppression of government schools; secondly it wasn't my school."

III.

The servant girl at the Manse has had an illegitimate child, and Meg
Caddam, the out-worker at East Mains is cutting her dead. Thus the
gossip of Mrs. Macdonald. Meg Caddam is the unmarried mother of three.

I have noticed again and again that the most severe critic of the
unmarried mother is the unmarried mother, and I have many a time
wondered at the fact. Now I know the explanation; it is the familiar
Projection of a Reproach. Meg feels guilty because of her three
children, but her guilt is repressed, driven down into the unconscious.

She dare not allow her conscious mind to face the truth, for then the
truth would lower her self-respect; it would be unpleasant, out of
harmony with her ego-ideal. But it is easy for her to project this
inner reproach on to someone else, hence her blaming of the Manse
lassie. Meg Caddam is really condemning herself, but she does not know
it.

I used to despise the Meg Caddams as hypocrites, but, poor souls, they
are not hypocrites. Their condemnation of their fallen sisters is
genuine. It is wonderful how we all manage to divide our minds into
compartments. Sandy Marshall of Brigs Farm is a most religious man,
yet the other day he was fined for watering his milk. It is unjust to
say that his religion is hypocritical. What happens is that his
religion is shut up in one compartment of his mind, and his dishonesty
is shut up in another compartment . . . and there is no direct
communication between the compartments.

The mind is like one of the older railway carriages; education's task
is to convert the old carriage into a new corridor carriage with
communication between the compartments. Meg Caddam's own transgression
against current morality is locked up in one compartment; her
condemnation of the Manse girl is in another compartment. There is an
unconscious communication, but there is no conscious communication. I
don't know what Meg would say if a cruel friend pointed out to her that
she also was a fallen woman.

I think that the gossip of this village mostly consists of projected
reproaches. Liz Ramsay, an old maid and the