s the Montessori teacher, because she has been trained in
the psychology of the conscious only.

Another reason why I am not wholly on the side of Montessori is, I
fancy, that her religious attitude repels me. She is a church woman;
she has a definite idea of right and wrong. Thus, although she allows
children freedom to choose their own occupations, she allows them no
freedom to challenge adult morality. But for a child to accept a
ready-made code of morals is dangerous; education in morality is a
thousand times more important than intellectual education with a
didactic apparatus.

* * * * *

To-night Duncan came in, and as usual we talked education. I took up
the subject of punishment, and condemned it on the ground that it
treats effect instead of cause. After a little persuasion Duncan
seemed inclined to agree with me.

"I see what you mean," he said, "but what I say is that if you abolish
punishment you must also abolish reward."

"Why not?" I said. "The case against rewards is just as simple. A
child should do a lesson for the joy of doing it. Milton certainly did
not write _Paradise Lost_ for the five pounds he got for it."

"Yes, I see that," said Duncan thoughtfully, "but what about
competition? The prize at the end introduces a breezy struggle for
place."

I shook my head.

"No competition! I won't have it. It makes the chap at the top of the
class a prig, and gives the poor chap at the bottom an inferiority
complex. No, we want to encourage not competition but co-operation.
Competition leads naturally to another world war, as competition
between British and American capital is doing now."

Then Duncan floored me.

"And would you discourage football because it introduces the idea of
competition?" he asked.

"Of course not," I replied

"Then why discourage it in arithmetic?" he asked.

It was an arresting question, and I had to grope for an answer that
would convince not only Duncan but myself. That every healthy boy
likes to try his strength against his fellows is a fact that we cannot
ignore. Mr. Arthur Balfour's desire to beat his golfing partner and
Jock Broon's desire to spit farther than Jake Tosh are fundamentally
the same desire, the desire for self-assertion. And I see that the man
who comes in last in the quarter-mile race is in the same position of
inferiority as the boy who is always at the bottom of the class. Yet I
condemn competition in