I rushed through the garden gate, destroying some of my father's favourite flowers with my trailing satchel. I sink on a paving stone and loudly expressed my attitude towards school. It was that I did not like school. Thousands of students have the same attitude toward the school. To them the school is no better than a compulsory purgatory.

Now I am giving a picture of the conventional method of teaching in my school. The teacher enters the class. The students become quit and stand up. The teacher tells us (students) to sit down and starts the lesson of the day. He dictates notes on history. We are reluctant to write again. But We write for fear of punishment. We take down the dictation mechanically, finding little interest in it. I interrupt the teacher again and again. I say that my pen has no ink. The teacher asks me to fill it and resume the lesson. I stop writing again and say that I have missed a few words. The teacher asks me to leave a space and copy it latter. The teacher continues his dictation. I again interrupt him, saying that my nib is broken. At this the teacher becomes angry and orders me to stand outside the classroom for the rest of the period. At the end of the period I learn nothing of the historical facts dictated by the teacher. All other periods of the day are taken by other teachers in the same way. The students find little or no interest in the lessons taught. To us the classes are dull and uninteresting. Most of the schools in the country present the same picture.

Here I conceive of an ideal school where the minds of the pupils should be kept active. In such a school teaching should  be imparted in such a way that the students take active part in the lessons. Students should discuss the subject with the teacher, express their own views and listen to others.

The atmosphere in the school should be less formal, the teachers calling both boys and girls by their Christian names. The classes should be smaller. The lessons should not be taught in a mechanical way. They should be in the form of debates, all the students taking part in them under guidance of the teachers.

A history lesson in this circumstances would go this way:

The teacher is taking our history class. Instead of delivering his lectures or dictating notes, he invites the opinions of the students. At first he asks the class if anyone can give his views on Napoleon as a man. I say that in the last lesson Napoleon was said to be a megalomaniac. Be he does not agree. The teacher asks me to give reasons. I put forward his agreement to establish his point. The teacher then asks another student, Elizabeth, to give her opinion of my statement. Elizabeth expresses her view, and the class continues in this way. All the students take part in the discussion, and the lessons becomes lively and interesting.

I should think that a vast majority of today's school children would prefer to be taught in a school using the second method, but will probably not get the chance.