ife and Death of Mr. Badman_?"

"No."

"Milton's _Areopagitica_?"

"Er--no."

"Swift's _Tale of a Tub_?"

"No."

I sighed.

"Would you like to read them?" I asked.

"I don't think they would interest me," he admitted.

"Then in heaven's name, why expect children to have any interest in
them? If these classics weren't shoved down children's throats the
adult population of this country would be sitting of an evening reading
and enjoying Milton instead of _John Bull_."

Mac would not have this.

"Children must read the classics so that they may get a good style," he
said.

"Style be blowed!" I cried. "The only way to get a style is by
writing. Mac, I should cut out all the lectures about Chaucer and
Spenser and Shakespeare, and let the children write during the English
period . . . if I had periods, which I wouldn't. I don't want style
from kiddies; I want to see them create in their own way. If they are
free to create they will form their own style."

In a conversation one always has a tendency to overstate a case, and as
the argument went on I found myself saying wild things. Writing calmly
now I still hold to my attitude concerning style. I love a book
written in fine style, but I refuse to impose style on children. In
every child there is a gigantic protest. Thus the son of praying
parents often turns out to be a scoffer. I had a good instance of the
danger of superimposition of style.

I had a class of boys and girls of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen
years of age. For one period a week we all wrote five minute essays,
and then we read them out. Sometimes we would make criticisms; for
instance one girl used the word "beastly" in a serious essay, and we
all protested against it. Then one day the head-master decided that
they should write essays for him. He set a serious subject--The
Function of Authority, I think it was--and then he went over their
books with a blue pencil and corrected their spelling and style.

Three days later my English period came round. I entered the room and
found the class sitting round the fire.

"Hullo!" I said, "aren't you going to write?"

"No," growled the class.

"Why not?"

"Fed up with writing. We want to talk about economics or psychology."

A fortnight later they made an attempt to write short essays, but it
was a miserable failure; all the joy in creation had been killed by
that blue pencil.

I can give an example of the other way, the on