ange as it may seem,
it is quite possible to teach it in such a way that no boy feels impelled
to ask questions either insoluble in themselves or beyond the scope of
the master's immediate memory. There are schoolmasters who definitely
discourage or even forbid the asking of questions by the class. "Little
boys should be seen and not heard"--that worst of all educational
maxims--makes a larger contribution to the buttressing up of the present
system than is usually supposed. A lowering diet of irregular verbs
keeps the boy mind "docile," to use a word of ironically perverted
meaning, and prevents it from impinging embarrassingly upon the lightly
guarded regions of the master's intellectual entrenchments. In fact,
political education set up a new intellectual standard. It was a subject
in which no one, boy or master, got "full marks,"--scarcely even
President Wilson, perhaps, if you took his "work" as a whole! All were
learners, all were fellow workers together, and before the vast scope of
the task, differences of proficiency between the various workers seemed
hardly to matter.

Here, then, rises a difficult question. Ought the schoolmaster to
possess, or appear to possess, complete knowledge of the subject he
teaches? The present writer has taught a good variety of subjects during
nine years, and on the whole he has found his ignorance, not only of
politics, but of far more finite matters, a very helpful educational
instrument. As an emergency teacher of Latin on the modern side, for
instance, he found it a positive advantage that he had forgotten more of
the language than his pupils had ever learnt. His occasional quaint
errors did not always pass undetected, and their detection had probably
an educational stimulus for the form which outweighed the loss incurred
when his mistakes passed without notice. Nor did he feel greatly the
loss of intellectual stature. It was partly made good by the ingenuity
with which he explained how he had come to make the mistake. And if
there was loss in intellectual prestige, there was an increased sense of
intellectual comradeship. But this is a trifling and not wholly serious
digression.

Some masters stand for intellectual infallibility. These political
discussions disturbed them. They felt that their credentials as
schoolmasters were being examined and found wanting. They accused the
boys of priggery. It was a most false charge, for the boys were
enthusiasts, and