I been a member of the meeting.
I was quite sure that if the bell had not broken up the meeting
somebody would have made the discovery that Miss Brown was the proper
person to make the accusation to. When they thought that Mary insulted
me they sent for me, and I fully expected they would send for Miss
Brown. Again I argued that if Miss Brown had favourites the class had
a right to criticise her. If she had no favourites let her arraign the
class before a meeting of the whole school and accuse them of libel.

Looking back I still think my attitude was right, for unless the staff
can lay aside all dignity and become members of the gang education is
not free. Yet I see now that I was secretly exulting in the
discomfiture of a colleague . . . a common human failing which none of
us care to recognise in ourselves. It is a sad fact but a true one
that however much Dr. A. protests when a patient tells him that Dr. B.
is a clumsy fool, unconsciously at least Dr. A. is gratified at the
criticism of his rival. Psycho-analysts, that is people who are
supposed to know the contents of their unconscious, are just as guilty
in this respect as other doctors, and if anyone doubts this let him ask
a Freudian what he thinks of the Jungian in the next street.

My earliest memory of professional jealousy goes back to the age of
seven. I lived next door to a dentist, a real qualified L.D.S. Across
the street lived a quack dental surgeon. When trade was dull these two
used to come to their respective doors and converse with each other in
the good old simple way of putting the fingers to the nose. They never
spoke to each other. Life in a northern town was simple in these days.

* * * * *

Helen Macdonald is four years old, and her mother and I have some
breezy discussions about her upbringing. Mrs. Mac has a great
admiration for her own mother, and she is bent on bringing up her
daughter in the way that she was brought up.

"Mother made me obey and I'll make Helen obey," she said to-day with
decision.

"It's dangerous," I said.

"No it isn't; it worked well enough in my case anyway."

"Don't blow your own trumpet, madam!"

She smiled.

"I don't think I am a bad product of the good old way," she said with a
self-satisfied air.

"Madam, shall I tell you the truth about yourself?"

She bubbled and drew her chair closer to mine.

"Do!" she cried, and then added: "But I won't believe the nast