me: "Oh,
_have_ you read _The Young Visitors_?" I hasten to add, as a Scot,
that I personally did not help to increase the circulation; I borrowed
the book from an enthusiast. Talk sells a book, but we have to
discover why people talk about _The Young Visitors_ and not
about--er--_The Booming of Bunkie_. The book that is to sell well must
be able to touch a chord in the crowd heart, and _The Young Visitors_
sold because it touched the infantile chord in the crowd heart; it
brought back the happiest days of life, the schooldays: again, its
naive Malapropisms appealed to the crowd, because we are all glad to
laugh at the social and grammatical errors we have made and
conveniently forgotten about.

_Bunkie_ did not reach the hundred thousand level because it was too
clever; it was a purely intellectual essay in wit rather than humour.
And the crowd distrusts wit, and that is why the witty plays of Oscar
Wilde are seldom produced, while _Charley's Aunt_ goes on for ever.

I am tempted to go on to a comparison of wit with humour, but I shall
only remark that wit is an intellectual thing, whereas humour is
emotional. Humour is elemental, but wit is cultural. Without a
language you could have humour, but without language there could be no
wit.

* * * * *

I have just come across a small book entitled _Hints on School
Discipline_, by Ernest F. Row, B.Sc.

"Boys will only respect a master whom they fear," he says. I have been
preaching this doctrine for years . . . that respect always has fear
behind it . . . and it pleases me to find that an exponent of the old
methods should support my argument.

When I began to read the book I was amazed.

"Good Lord!" I cried, "this chap should have published his book in the
year 1820. He advocates a system that modern psychology has shown to
be fatal to the child. It is army discipline applied to schools."

I found it hard to finish the book, but I read every word of it and
then I said to myself: "The majority is on the side of Row. Eton,
Harrow, many elementary teachers would agree with him. He is evidently
an honest sort of fellow, and he must be reckoned with. I must try to
see his point of view."

And I think I see it. He accepts current education with its set
subjects, time-tables, order, morality, and he is trying to adapt the
young teacher to what is established. Hence to maintain all these
things, we must have stern discipline and s