Free Holiday by Stanley Middleton Page A

desire to stop theft.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Fisher said. ‘The religious men who . . .’ Vernon waved delicate hands at him.
    ‘If it is not, I’ve no further interest. If to wish to protect private property is philosophy then I philosophise.’
    ‘It’s the formulation in words that is philosophy.’
    ‘Yes. I fear so.’ Vernon gesticulated with a cigar. ‘And a useless activity it is.’
    ‘Oh, I’d agree if that were the only form of action. But for every single philosopher there are a hundred lawyers and a thousand teachers.’
    ‘Who pay no attention to the one.’
    ‘That doesn’t matter. A purely utilitarian approach.’
    And so they’d argue, Vernon murmuring, ‘purely, purely,’ and tracing, spoiling the cigar smoke with an ironical finger.
    ‘How many philosophers of education, Edwin,’ he’d ask, ‘at present at work in this country have made any impact on the day schools? Or at long second hand on me, the interested general reader, so that I shall recall their names when you mention them?’
    Fisher tried to argue pragmatically, to convince the other that it did prospective teachers good to struggle temporarily with these ideas, however dry or useless, or better, that his own approach, a close examination of the language in which these principles were couched was a preparation for life where words figured so largely. But Vernon had none of it. He voiced a low opinion of schoolmasters who were only that because they were incapable of anything else, lacking any special expertise, who preferred the privileged position in a school, dominating the young rather than competing with men in an adult world.
    ‘It’s obvious you’ve never been in front of a class.’
    ‘It’s obvious,’ Vernon answered, ‘Edwin, from your frowning and red face and threatening voice that you’ve barely been anywhere else.’
    In fact Fisher rarely lost his temper in argument. He knew that Vernon’s philosophy was materialistic; solicitors made money because they harboured no egalitarian heresies about themselves and because they worked as well as protected themselves.
    ‘Go and ask your students,’ Vernon pressed. ‘I do. They’ll condemn you out of their own mouths. Your course is a pleasant year’s rest after finals. The Law Society’s no such holiday home. Our exams may be boring rote-work so that one needs no brains to pass, but candidates fail in droves.’
    ‘Because they get no proper tuition.’
    ‘Perhaps, perhaps. But mainly because we have a philosophy of law. At least for these candidates. And it is that the lay-about and the half-prepared and the gas-bag will be found wanting and marked down. Unless an aspirant solicitor can write and figure, can give and take account of the laws of the land, he will not pass. Your students, and it was so even in my day at my nonconformist, puritan college, will be given a diploma whatever they know or don’t know. And you cannot deny it.’
    The voice splayed Welsh.
    Fisher even as he returned to the argument suspected that his father-in-law envied him his niche. ‘A doctor’s cap presses my brow, and I walked gown’d.’
    Even as he grappled with his father-in-law, Fisher wryly considered life which had presented him first with his own dad, an ignorant shopkeeper, and now this proxy, a graduate member of a learned profession, who both had envied him his status, his scholarship and poked round in reference books or flashy argument to prove themselves somewhere near equality with a son who’d make little claim himself to learning.
    He explained, then, to Sandra Smith what he did, and she cooed softly as her husband smiled vaguely. They were acquiring experience which they’d retail to neighbours. ‘Do you remember that university lecturer, Terry, in our digs? Talked about philosphy. Explained beautifully, didn’t he?’ ‘Couldn’t make a word out, myself.’ ‘Ooh, Terry.’ And the neighbours’ eyes would brighten at this high life as they