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Gorst + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Curse of Education + +Author: Harold E. Gorst + +Release Date: August 7, 2009 [EBook #29630] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSE OF EDUCATION *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Susan Skinner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + +<h1 style="margin-top: 5em; margin-bottom: 10em;">THE CURSE OF EDUCATION</h1> + + +<div style="border: solid 1px; padding: 1em; width: 50%;" class='center'> +<p class='center'><b>Publisher's Announcement</b></p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p class='center'>A NOTABLE BOOK</p> + + +<p class='center' style="font-size: x-large;"><b>DRIFTING</b></p> + +<p class='center'>Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p class='center'>THIRD EDITION</p> + + +<p>'An able and suggestive book.'—<i>The Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>'It is a sane, healthy indication of the weak spots in the country's +armour, and a practical attempt to indicate remedies.'—<i>The Sunday +Special.</i></p> + +<p>'The author's contempt for the time-serving politician, who in this +country has, unfortunately, come to count for so much in all +governments—Tory or Liberal—will be shared by the thinking portion of +his fellow countrymen.'—<i>The Financial News.</i></p> + +<p>'By such suggestions the author of "Drifting" does good service to the +country.'—<i>The Outlook.</i></p> + +<p class='center'>LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS</p> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">9, Henrietta Street, W.C.</span></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>The<br /> +Curse of Education</h1> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large; margin-top: 2em;">BY<br /> +HAROLD E. GORST</p> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;">London<br /> +Grant Richards<br /> +1901</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">{v}</a></span></p> + + + +<h2>PREFATORY NOTE</h2> + + +<p>In calling this little book 'The Curse of Education,' I trust that I +shall not be misunderstood to disparage culture. The term 'education' is +used, for want of a better word, to express the conventional mode of +teaching and bringing up children, and of educating youth in this and +other civilized countries. It is with education systems, with the +universal method of cramming the mind with facts, and particularly with +the manufacture of uniformity and mediocrity by subjecting every +individual to a common process, regardless of his natural bent, that I +have chiefly to find fault. At a moment when the country is agitated +with questions of educational reform, I thought it might be useful to +draw attention to what I believe to be a fact, namely, that the +foundations of all existing education systems are absolutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> false in +principle; and that teaching itself, as opposed to natural development +and self-culture, is the greatest obstacle to human progress that social +evolution has ever had to encounter.</p> + +<p> +HAROLD E. GORST.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">London</span>,<br /> +<i>April, 1901</i>.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left" colspan='2'>CHAPTER</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td align="left">FLOURISHING MEDIOCRITY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td align="left">SQUARE PEGS IN ROUND HOLES</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td align="left">THE DESTRUCTION OF GENIUS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td align="left">HUMAN FACTORIES</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td align="left">THE GREATEST MISERY OF THE GREATEST NUMBER</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td align="left">THE OUTPUT OF PRIGS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td align="left">BOY DEGENERATION</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td align="left">THE STRUGGLE OF THE EDUCATED</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td align="left">WOMAN'S EMPIRE OVER MAN</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td align="left">YOUTH AND CRIME</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td align="left">MENTAL BREAKDOWN</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td align="left">EVIDENCE OF HISTORY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td align="left">THE APOTHEOSIS OF CRAM</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td align="left">THE GREAT FALLACY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td align="left">REAL EDUCATION</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td align="left">THE OPEN DOOR TO INTELLIGENCE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> +</table></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">{1}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CURSE_OF_EDUCATION" id="THE_CURSE_OF_EDUCATION"></a>THE CURSE OF EDUCATION</h2> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">FLOURISHING MEDIOCRITY</span></h2> + + +<p>Humanity is rapidly becoming less the outcome of a natural process of +development, and more and more the product of an organized educational +plan. The average educated man possesses no real individuality. He is +simply a manufactured article bearing the stamp of the maker.</p> + +<p>Year by year this fact is becoming more emphasized. During the past +century almost every civilized country applied itself feverishly to the +invention of a national plan of education, with the result that the +majority of mankind are compelled to swallow a uniform prescription of +knowledge made up for them by the State. Now there is a great outcry +that England is being left behind in this educational race. Other +nations have got more exact systems. Where the British child is only +stuffed with six pounds of facts, the German and French schools contrive +to cram seven pounds into their pupils. Consequently, Germany and France +are getting ahead of us, and unless we wish to be beaten in the +international race,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">{2}</a></span> it is asserted that we must bring our own +educational system up to the Continental standard.</p> + +<p>Before going more deeply into this vital question, it is just as well to +consider what these education systems have really done for mankind. +There is a proverb, as excellent as it is ancient, which says that the +proof of the pudding is in the eating. No doubt learned theoretical +treatises upon the scope and aim of educational methods are capital +things in their way, but they tell us nothing of the effects of this +systematic teaching and cramming upon the world at large. If we wish to +ascertain them, we must turn to life itself, and judge by results.</p> + +<p>To begin with, the dearth of great men is so remarkable that it scarcely +needs comment. People are constantly expressing the fear that the age of +intellectual giants has passed away altogether. This is particularly +obvious in political life. Since the days of Gladstone and Disraeli, +Parliamentary debate has sunk to the most hopeless level of mediocrity. +The traditions of men such as Pitt, Fox, Palmerston, Peel, and others, +sound at the present day almost like ancient mythology. Yet the supposed +benefits of education are not only now free to all, but have been +compulsorily conferred upon most nations. Nevertheless, even Prussian +pedagogues have never succeeded in producing another Bismarck; and +France has ground away at her educational mill for generations with the +result that the supply of Napoleons has distinctly diminished.</p> + +<p>Look at the methods by which our public service is recruited.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">{3}</a></span></p> + +<p>Who are the men to whom the administration of all important departments +of Government is entrusted, and how are they selected?</p> + +<p>They are simply individuals who have succeeded in obtaining most marks +in public competitive examinations—that is to say, men whose brains +have been more effectually stuffed with facts and mechanical knowledge +than were the brains of their unsuccessful competitors.</p> + +<p>There is no question, when a candidate presents himself for a post in +the Diplomatic Service or in one of the Government offices, whether he +possesses tact, or administrative ability, or knowledge of the world. +All that is demanded of him is that his mind should be crammed with so +many pounds avoirdupois of Latin, Greek, mathematics, history, +geography, etc., acquired in such a way that he will forget, within a +couple of years, every fact that has been pestled into him. For every +vacancy in the various departments of the Administration there are +dozens, or even scores, of applicants; and the candidate selected for +the post is the one whose mind has been most successfully subjected to +this process of over-cramming, and consequently most effectually ruined +for all the practical purposes of life.</p> + +<p>Now, to whatever cause it may be ascribed, there can be no doubt that +the general level throughout the various branches of the public service +is one of mediocrity. We are not surrounded, faithful and devoted as our +public servants are universally admitted to be, by administrative +geniuses. Facts point altogether the other way. Great national<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">{4}</a></span> +catastrophes, like the blunders and miscalculations that have +characterized the conduct of the war in South Africa, have always +resulted in making the most uncomfortable revelations concerning the +inefficiency of more than one important department of Government.</p> + +<p>The War Office has long since become a public scandal, and if the truth +were known about the inner domesticity of more than one great +Administrative office, the susceptibilities of the nation would be still +further shocked and outraged. Fortunately, however—or it may be +unfortunately—Government linen is usually washed at home; and it is +only in times of great emergency that the truth leaks out, to the +general consternation.</p> + +<p>When this does happen there is a great outcry about the inefficiency of +this or that branch of the public service. The Government in power wait +to see if the agitation dies a natural death; and if it is successfully +kept up, a sort of pretence at reform takes place. There is a +re-shuffle. Fresh names are given to old abuses; incompetent officials +exchange posts; and a new building is erected at the public expense. +Then all goes on as heretofore.</p> + +<p>Nobody seems to think of making an inquiry into the constitution of the +public service itself. But until this is done no real reform of any +permanent value can possibly be effected. It is not the nomenclature of +appointments, the subdivision of departmental work, and such matters of +detail, that stand in need of the reformer. The titles and duties of the +several officials are of secondary importance. It is not in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">{5}</a></span> them that +the evils of bad administration are to be located.</p> + +<p>The fault lies with the officials themselves, who are the victims of the +stupid system which has placed them in the position they occupy. The +education they have received has, in the first case, unfitted them for +the performance of any but mechanical and routine work; and the strain +of a competitive examination, involving the most unintellectual and +brain-paralyzing process of cram, has probably destroyed the faculty of +initiative, which should be, but is not, a distinguishing characteristic +of the administrative official.</p> + +<p>Herein lies the secret of all opposition to progress. It is the +permanent official who needs reforming. He is the embodiment of routine +and conservatism, because he is the embodiment of mediocrity. Progress +means ideas, and mediocrity does not deal in them. It has been +furnished, instead, by a systematic course of instruction, with a +sufficient equipment of the ideas of other people to last its lifetime. +Whilst we fill our public service with specially prepared mediocrity, +the administrative departments will remain reactionary. And as long as +education is synonymous with cramming on an organized plan, it will +continue to produce mediocrity.</p> + +<p>The army affords at the present moment an admirable object-lesson in +this connection. The results of cramming young men as a preparation for +a profession which demands, more than any other, individual initiative +and independence, have become painfully apparent upon the field of +battle. One of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">{6}</a></span> our foremost generals has come home from the campaign +declaring the necessity of both officers and men being trained to think +and act for themselves. That is one, perhaps the chief, of the great +lessons which this war has taught us. But here, again, no useful reform +can be achieved by alterations in the drill-book, through lectures by +experienced generals, or by the issue of army orders. It is our entire +system of education which is again at fault.</p> + +<p>Boys are stuffed with facts before they go to Sandhurst, and when they +get there they are crammed in special subjects. The whole object of the +process is to enable candidates to pass examinations, and not to produce +good officers. The effect here is the same as elsewhere. A quantity of +useless and some useful knowledge is drilled into the pupil in such a +manner that the mind retains nothing that has been put into it. And, to +make matters worse, all this is done at the expense of retarding the +proper development of faculties which would be of incalculable value to +the soldier.</p> + +<p>Most of the blunders of the war are, in fact, attributable to want of +common sense, and common sense consists in the capacity of an individual +to think for himself and to exercise his judgment. Educational methods +which, in the majority of cases, appear to destroy this faculty +altogether are clearly pernicious. Common sense is the most valuable +gift with which man can be endowed. It is the very essence of genius, +for it consists in the application of intelligence to every detail, and +the highest order of intellect can accomplish no more than that. Yet it +is the rarest of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">{7}</a></span> all attributes, for the very reason that it is +deliberately destroyed by conventional methods of bringing up children +and instructing youth. Therefore, before we can hope to obtain a supply +of self-reliant officers and men, we must see some radical change in the +very principles upon which modern methods of education are founded.</p> + +<p>Wherever we go we find this curse of mediocrity. In the professions, at +the Bar, in the pulpit, amongst physicians, it is apparent everywhere. +There are clever men, of course; but the very fact that their names +spring at once prominently to mind is in itself a proof that ability is +exceptional.</p> + +<p>Some people, of course, accepting the world as they find it, may think +it very unreasonable to expect able men to be plentiful in all walks of +life. That is, to my mind, the chief pathos of the situation. It has +come to be accepted that the world must be filled with a great majority +of very commonplace people, even amongst the educated classes.</p> + +<p>No doubt it is filled at the present moment with a very vast +preponderance of conventional minds manufactured to meet the supposed +requirements of our complicated civilization. But I deny that this need +be the case. On the contrary, we are surrounded on all sides by ability, +by great possibilities of individual development, even by genius.</p> + +<p>And our education systems are busily engaged in the work of destroying +this precious material, substituting facts for ideas, forcing the mind +away from its natural bent, and manufacturing a machine instead of a +man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">{8}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">SQUARE PEGS IN ROUND HOLES</span></h2> + + +<p>Perhaps the worst evil from which the world suffers in an educational +sense is the misplaced individual. Nothing is more tragic, and yet +nothing is more common, than to see men occupying positions for which +they are unfitted by nature and therefore by inclination; whilst it is +obvious that, had the circumstances of their early training been +different, they might have followed with success and pleasure a natural +bent of mind tending in a wholly opposite direction.</p> + +<p>This miscarriage of vocation is one of the greatest causes of individual +misery in this world that exists; but its pernicious effects go far +beyond mere personal unhappiness: they exercise the most baneful +influence upon society at large, upon the progress of nations, and upon +the development of the human race. One of the advantages of the division +of labour which is most emphasized by political economists is that it +offers a fair field for personal adaptation. People select the +particular employment for which they are most fitted, and in this way +everybody in the community is engaged in doing the best and most useful +work of which he is capable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span></p> + +<p>It is a fine theory. Perhaps in olden times, before the introduction of +education systems, it may have worked well in regard to most trades and +industries. A man had then at least some opportunity of developing a +natural bent. He was not taken by the State almost from infancy, crammed +with useless knowledge, and totally unfitted for any employment within +his reach. The object was not to educate him above his station and then +make a clerk of him, or drive him into the lower branches of the Civil +Service. A bright youth was apprenticed by his father to some trade for +which he may have shown some predisposition.</p> + +<p>Of course, mistakes were often made through the stupidity of parents or +from some other cause. There are many such examples to be met with in +the biographies of men who attained eminence in wholly different +callings from those into which they were forced in their youth.</p> + +<p>Sir William Herschel, who discovered Uranus, and who first conceived the +generally-accepted theory as to the cause of sun-spots, was brought up +by his father to be a musician. In spite of his predilection for +astronomy, he continued to earn his bread by playing the oboe, until he +was promoted from being a performer in the Pump Room at Bath to the +position of Astronomer Royal.</p> + +<p>Faraday was apprenticed by his father to a bookbinder, and he remained +in this distasteful employment until he was twenty-two. It was quite by +accident that somebody more intelligent than Michael Faraday's pastors +and masters discovered that the youth had a great natural love of +studying science,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">{10}</a></span> and sent him to hear a course of lectures delivered +by Sir Humphry Davy. This led happily to the young bookbinder making the +acquaintance of the lecturer, and eventually obtaining a position as +assistant in the Royal Institution.</p> + +<p>Linnæus, the great naturalist, had a very narrow escape from missing his +proper vocation. He was sent to a grammar-school, but exhibited no taste +for books; therefore his father decided to apprentice him to a +shoemaker. Fortunately, however, a discriminating physician had observed +the boy's love of natural history, and took him into his own house to +teach him botany and physiology.</p> + +<p>Instances of the kind might be multiplied. Milton himself began life as +a schoolmaster, and the father of Turner, one of the greatest landscape +painters who ever lived, did his best to turn his brilliant son into a +barber. The point, however, is obvious enough without the need of +further illustration. A few examples have been adduced of great geniuses +who have contrived, by the accident of circumstances or through sheer +force of character, to escape from an environment which was forced upon +them against their natural inclination. But it is not everybody who is +gifted with such commanding talent and so much obstinacy and +perseverance as to be able to overcome the artificial obstacles placed +in the way of his individual tendencies; and now we have, what happily +did not exist in the day of Herschel, Faraday, Turner, Linnæus and +others—a compulsory education system to strangle originality and +natural development at the earliest possible stage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span></p> + +<p>Most people would probably find it far easier to quote instances offhand +of friends who had missed their proper vocation in life than of those +who were placed exactly in the position best suited to their taste and +capacity. The failures in life are so obviously in excess of those who +may be said to have succeeded that specific illustrations of the fact +are hardly necessary.</p> + +<p>One has only to exert ordinary powers of observation to perceive that +the world is not at all well ordered in this respect. It has already +been pointed out that the public service and the professions are almost +entirely filled with what must be called mediocrity; and one of the most +potent causes of this unhappy state of affairs is the exquisite +infallibility with which a blind system is constantly forcing square +pegs into round holes.</p> + +<p>Every profession and calling teems with examples. There are men, +intended by nature to be artists and musicians, leading a wretched and +unnatural existence in many a merchant's office because their best +faculties were undeveloped during the early years of schooling. +Mathematicians, philosophers, even poets, are tied to trade or to some +equally unsuitable occupation. Scores of so-called literary men ought to +be calculating percentages or selling dry goods; and no doubt there are +shop-assistants and stock-jobbers who might, if led into the path of +culture, have become creditable authors and journalists.</p> + +<p>This is neither joke nor satire. It is sober earnest, as many observant +readers will readily testify. The loss is not only to the individual, it +is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span> to society at large, and to the whole world. No one will deny the +fact; but to how many will it occur that such anomalies cannot be the +outcome of natural development and progress, but that they must be +directly or indirectly attributable to some artificial cause?</p> + +<p>It is the great difficulty against which all human advancement has to +contend, that people can rarely be brought to question principles which +have become a part and parcel of their everyday existence. There are +plenty of individuals who are ready to tinker with existing +institutions, and who erroneously dignify that process by the name of +reform. But nothing is more despairing than the effort to convince +conventionally brought up people that some cherished convention, with +which the world has put up for an indefinite period, is founded upon +fallacy, and ought to be cast out root and branch.</p> + +<p>Even in the United States, where far greater efforts are made to +encourage individuality in the schools and colleges than is the case +with the countries of the Old World, people are not much better +distributed amongst the various professions and occupations than they +are here. I have made inquiries amongst Americans of wide experience and +observation, and have learnt that nothing is more common in the States +than to find individuals brought up to exercise functions for which they +are wholly unfitted by natural capacity and inclination.</p> + +<p>An instance was given me, by an American friend, of a boy who spent all +his leisure in constructing clever little mechanical contrivances, in +running<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span> miniature locomotives, and in setting up electric appliances of +one kind and another. One day the youth's father came to him and said: +'I don't know what to make of B——. Could you find him a place in a +wholesale merchant's office?' When it was pointed out to the parent that +his son showed unmistakable mechanical genius, he obstinately insisted +on getting the boy a situation for which he was quite unsuited, and +which was highly distasteful to him.</p> + +<p>I quote this instance to show that the parent is often as bad an +educator as the school itself. In this case the school would have taken +as little notice of the boy's natural bent as his father. It would, in +all probability, never have discovered it at all. But it has become so +much an accepted axiom that children are to be manufactured into +anything that happens to suit the taste or convenience of their +guardians, that it probably never occurred to the parent in question +that he was committing a cruel and foolish act in forcing his son out of +the path into which the boy's natural instinct was guiding him. The +youth who might have pursued a happy and prosperous career as a +mechanical engineer is now a disappointed man, struggling on, with +little hope of success, in an occupation which does not interest him, +and for which he does not possess the slightest adaptability.</p> + +<p>Every nation is equally at fault in this respect. In Germany, for +instance, the child is quite as much a pawn at the disposal of its +parent and the school system as it is elsewhere. I spent a number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span> +years in the country, and enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with many +German families. Nothing has left upon my mind a deeper impression than +the tragedy I witnessed of a boy being gradually and systematically +weaned from the pursuit to which he was passionately devoted, and forced +into a career utterly unsympathetic and distasteful to his peculiar +temperament.</p> + +<p>The boy was simply, from head to foot, a musician. He spent every moment +he could steal from his school studies in playing through the difficult +scores of Wagner's music dramas. His taste, his musical memory, the +enormous natural ability which enabled him to surmount all technical +difficulties with ease, were apparent to everybody who knew him. Yet his +parents determined from the first that he should study law, and enter +the legal profession.</p> + +<p>I have never seen anything more painful than the deliberate +discouragement, during a period extending over several years, of the +boy's natural bent, and the application of absolute compulsion to force +him, against every natural instinct, to prepare himself for a profession +repugnant to his inclinations, and for which he was not in the smallest +degree adapted.</p> + +<p>Out of this promising musical material the <i>Stadt Gymnasium</i> +manufactured the usual piece of intellectual mediocrity. He was stuffed +with the regulation measure of facts, scraped through the customary +examination, and was despatched, much against his will, to the +universities of Jena and Zürich. When I last saw him he was a plodding +lawyer of the conventional type, doing his duties in a listless manner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span> +with very indifferent success, and quite broken down in spirit. The +<i>Gymnasium</i>, the university, and the parental obstinacy had done their +work very effectually. They had succeeded in reducing him to the level +of a machine, and in all probability Germany lost an excellent musician +who might have given pleasure to thousands of others, besides enjoying +an honourable career of useful and congenial work.</p> + +<p>We have seen that between the stupidity of the parent and the +inflexibility of the school system children have little chance of +developing their natural propensities. The results surround us +everywhere, and there is no getting away from them. All that the school +professes to do is to stuff the pupil with a certain quantity of facts +according to a fixed curriculum. It does not pretend to exercise any +other function. There is no effort to differentiate between individuals, +or to discover the natural bent of each particular child. Instruction +consists in cramming and prescribing by a more or less pernicious +method—according to the lights of the particular school authorities in +some cases, and in others according to a hard and fast code enforced by +the State—a certain quantity of facts into all pupils without +distinction.</p> + +<p>Parents, on the other hand, think they have fulfilled their duty simply +by sending their children to school. The only thing considered necessary +to equip a child for the battle of life is to get him an education, and +nobody bothers his head about the principles or the effects of the +process. The parent leaves everything to the school, regardless of the +fact that schools do not pretend to concern themselves about the +natural<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span> tendencies of their pupils. He is satisfied if his son is +receiving the same education as his neighbour's, and is quite contented +to leave the question of his future career to be an after-consideration.</p> + +<p>The result upon the world in general of this double neglect on the part +of parents and school systems is disastrous in the extreme. In the first +place, it makes the life of the misplaced individual a burden to himself +and to those by whom he is surrounded. Natural tendencies cannot be +wholly suppressed, even by education systems; and the victim's existence +is not rendered more bearable by the reflection that, but for +circumstances which he is rarely able to analyze, he might have +succeeded in some other and more agreeable occupation had he only +received the necessary encouragement in his youth.</p> + +<p>Secondly, there is the fact that the progress of civilization is +enormously retarded by its being rarely in the hands of the most fit. +The most fit are not, and cannot be, produced under prevailing +conditions. The whole machinery of education is directed towards the +production of a dead level of mediocrity. In many cases—such as, for +example, in Prussia—this is done by design, and not by accident. +Instruction is imparted in such a manner that no regard is paid to +individual propensities. All are subjected, more or less, to the same +process. They are fitted for nothing in particular, and no trouble is +taken to ascertain the direction in which an individual mind should be +developed. The consequence is that, from one end of the civilized world +to the other, resounds the cry, 'What shall we do with our boys?'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span></p> + +<p>And, lastly, it scarcely requires pointing out that the enormous sums of +money spent by Governments, by municipalities, and by private persons +upon education, in order to produce this lamentable state of affairs, is +so much waste and extravagance. Not only does it bring in no practical +return, but it works out in a precisely opposite direction. Schools and +colleges that only serve to produce anomalous and unnatural social +conditions, that stifle genius and talent, and that cause widespread +misery among the unsuitably educated, must be reckoned as a national +loss.</p> + +<p>People deplore the heavy sums spent on armaments and on the maintenance +of enormous fleets and armies; but it may be doubted if this expenditure +is as costly in the end as that which goes to support a systematic +manufacture of the unfit, and to assist in the distribution of +individuals to stations in the social scheme for which they are wholly +unsuited.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE DESTRUCTION OF GENIUS</span></h2> + + +<p>Most people labour under the delusion that genius only makes its +appearance twice or thrice during a generation. It is certainly the fact +that a Napoleon, a Shakespeare, or a Beethoven, is only born once in a +century; and colossal intellects such as these are rightly regarded as +unnatural phenomena. But genius of a less high order is far more common +than is generally supposed. People are simply blind to it. Although it +surrounds them on all sides, they fail to recognise it. And nearly +everybody is busily engaged in helping to destroy it, with a perversity +that is as unconscious as it is criminal.</p> + +<p>Those who have had the opportunity of observing the mental development +of an intelligent child that has not been subjected to the ordinary +processes of teaching, must have been struck with the originality of its +mind. If children are left to themselves, they will breed ideas at an +astonishing rate. Give an imaginative child of five or six some simple +object, such as a button or a piece of tape, and it will weave round it +a web of romance that would put many a poet or author to shame.</p> + +<p>Naturally brought up children will chatter fascinating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span> nonsense to the +very motes that float in a sunbeam; they will spin an Odyssey out of the +most trivial incident that has chanced to impress them. Every +commonplace object will be invested by them with mysterious and +fantastic attributes. When left to observe facts for themselves, they +will develop powers of reasoning and logic which no amount of cramming +and caning would ever succeed in driving into them.</p> + +<p>There are probably few parents who have not been startled, at some +period or another, by hearing from the lips of a child an original +reflection that exhibited an unexpected degree of mental development. +Did it ever occur to them that some intellectual process must have been +going on in the child's mind to produce such powers of observation or +thought? There is a fallacious notion, founded upon pure want of +observation, that human beings are unable to form ideas or to think for +themselves until they have been put through an elaborate course of +mental gymnastics. A great deal of the process misnamed education is +directed towards this end, with the result that in nine cases out of ten +the brain is simply paralyzed and rendered incapable of performing its +proper functions.</p> + +<p>The fact is, that people, whether young or old, cannot be forced to +think. It is a habit that must come of its own accord, and that can only +be stimulated by the most delicately-applied influences. Observant and +reflective parents, who have not chosen to leave the entire development +and upbringing of their children in the hands of nurses,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">{20}</a></span> will have +noticed that there is a natural tendency on the part of a child, if not +interfered with, to think and to expand its faculty of imagination. This +tendency is not shared to an equal extent by all children; there are, of +course, dissimilarities caused by varying degrees of intelligence. But +it is there, in however rudimentary and undeveloped a stage; and the +more backward it appears to be, the more care should be taken not to +destroy it or to check its natural growth.</p> + +<p>Now, the whole machinery of education is brought to bear, from the +moment the child is of an age to receive any instruction, to strangle +the development of the thinking and imaginative faculties. That process +will be described presently. What I wish to point out first is that, +long before the school or the governess commences this operation, the +parents of the child, or those to whom they have delegated the duty of +taking charge of it during the tenderest and most momentous years of its +existence, are generally engaged in doing everything they can to bring +about the same pernicious result.</p> + +<p>Of course the evil is committed in sheer ignorance. But it has been bred +for so many generations that individual judgment and common sense must +every day be becoming more rare. Therefore the evil spreads, and people +blame the introduction of railways and other mechanical improvements for +the diminishing supply of artistic and creative genius, whilst they are +in reality themselves busily employed in stifling its development.</p> + +<p>There are two ways in which this unhappy result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span> is brought about. In +the first place, there is the invariable custom of giving young children +toys which, far from stimulating the imagination, only serve to impress +upon their minds the commonplace facts of everyday life. It is really, +only in a different form, a part of the process by which, later on, the +education system drives out ideas and crams in facts.</p> + +<p>To take a concrete instance, a doll is the plaything usually given to +little girls. At first sight nothing can appear more charming or +instructive than the gift to a little girl, who will one day be a wife +and a mother, of the miniature representation of a baby. There will be a +bath provided, in which she may learn to wash it. Everything will be +complete—soap, sponge, loofah, puff-box, and powder. The present will +be accompanied by a <i>layette</i>, so that the child may learn to dress her +infant and to change its clothes. Hair-brushes will teach her to keep +the doll's hair neat; and probably a dozen other toilet requisites, of +which the masculine mind has no notion or is expected to affect +ignorance, will be found ready at hand to inculcate the lesson of +nursery routine.</p> + +<p>In this ingenious way the materialistic side of life is deliberately +forced upon the attention of the child. Everything is providently +supplied that would be calculated to occupy her attention with +commonplace facts instead of with fancies. The child is not encouraged +to make a living creature of this inanimate dummy, to tell it stories, +or to exercise her imagination in some other way. She is provided with a +round of prosaic and extremely material duties, and her mind is +carefully kept within these bounds by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span> details of soap and +feeding-bottles, which do not offer scope for any flight of imagination.</p> + +<p>It would be far better to place a bundle of rags in the arms of a little +girl, and to tell her to imagine it to be a baby. She would, if left to +herself, with no other resource than her own invention, soon learn to +exercise her dormant powers of imagination and originality.</p> + +<p>With the same lack of forethought boys are surrounded from earliest +infancy with objects designed to keep their minds within the narrow +limits of fact. Their playthings are ships, fire-engines, miniature +railways, water-pumps, and such-like. The imagination is allowed as +little play as possible. Interest is carefully concentrated upon the +mechanical details of spars, sails, rigging, watertight compartments, +wheels, rods, cranks, levers, and the thousand-and-one items which go to +make up a mechanical contrivance. Great care is taken in constructing +toy models to reproduce at least the chief points of the original, in +order to give them a supposititious educational value. The parents then +fondly imagine that, in stocking the nursery with these abominations, +they are largely assisting in the development of the boy's mind.</p> + +<p>To people who do not understand children it is difficult to convey any +adequate idea of the fatal result produced upon the dawning intellect by +this introduction of materialism into the nursery. The imaginative will +at once say that the contention is too far fetched. Certainly the +pernicious effects of such toys as have been described are not easily +discernible; therein lies the insidiousness of this retarding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span> process. +But to those who have watched, as I have done, the natural development +of an intelligent child's powers of reflection and +imagination—unchecked by dolls or toy locomotives—there will be +neither absurdity nor exaggeration in what I have written.</p> + +<p>Toys in themselves are harmless and unobjectionable things, though every +observant person who has had much to do with young children will readily +concede how superfluous they are as a means of amusement. The average +child will treasure up a button or a shell long after it has destroyed, +or maybe forgotten the existence of, the most elaborate and expensive +toy. That is a commonplace of the nursery. But it does not seem to +convey either meaning or moral to the majority of parents.</p> + +<p>The second way in which the thinking and imaginative faculties are +impeded in their development is by the discouragement of, or by the +injudicious answers given to, the questions asked by children. At a +certain age the latter become inquisitive about everything in the +universe. They ply their elders with perpetual questioning; and it must +be acknowledged that many of their interrogations are highly +inconvenient and unanswerable.</p> + +<p>It is very difficult for the average person to reply offhand to +elementary questions such as, Why does the sun shine? What makes the +wind blow? How does a seed grow into a tree? and so forth. Few people +have the patience to answer the numerous inquiries of an intelligent +child; and sooner than expose their ignorance, parents will generally +quench<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span> this thirst for knowledge at the outset by a flat prohibition. +The selfish desire for peace prompts them to refuse the solicited +information altogether, or, worse still, to return answers calculated to +kill imaginative ideas or to impress the child's mind with a bare and +prosaic materialism.</p> + +<p>They do not stop to think of the immense harm that may be done to the +child by throwing cold water upon its first attempts at research. +Children, it must be remembered, do not possess the perseverance and +determination which often come to the rescue of original genius at a +later period. However active their minds may be, they are also timid, +and shrink back quickly under the influence of unsympathetic treatment.</p> + +<p>The fact should be patent to everybody that children strive constantly +to use the brains with which Nature has endowed them. Being naturally +imaginative and original, these faculties only need ordinary +encouragement to develop and flourish. Yet the entire method of bringing +up children, from the cradle to the school bench, is directed towards +stifling all originality and substituting for it a stock of commonplace +ideas and conventional knowledge.</p> + +<p>The process is begun at home. It takes its root in conventionality, the +curse of all individuality and progress. Parents, brought up to be the +slaves of custom, carry on the imbecile traditions that have been handed +down to them from former generations, without stopping to consider +whether they are rational or foolish. It is good enough for the majority +of people that the imbecile things they do were done by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span> their +forefathers before them; and no tradition is more rigidly followed than +that which prescribes the manner of bringing up children.</p> + +<p>It would have been thought that those who had themselves suffered from +the effects of bad methods would be careful not to repeat the mistakes +with their own children. But that is the worst aspect of the evil. Its +chief operation consists in hedging round the intelligence with +conventionalities to such an extent as to exclude vigorous and +independent thought. The most intelligent people often find the utmost +difficulty in attempting to shake off the prejudices inculcated during +the early years of life.</p> + +<p>Many, before accomplishing this end, have had to pass through a long +period of suffering and adversity. But the average mind is generally a +hopeless case. There must be strong inward impulses, or the necessary +measure of initiative and courage will not be forthcoming. Everybody who +chooses to think for himself knows that it is an operation which does +not usually entail pleasant consequences.</p> + +<p>So much for the part played by the parent. The school system stands on a +different plane altogether, and must be considered by itself. For +parents there is, as has been pointed out, a certain amount of excuse. +For the school system there is none.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">HUMAN FACTORIES</span></h2> + + +<p>Distinction must be made, of course, in discussing the effects of +teaching methods upon children, between the various kinds of schools, +and between public instruction and private tuition. It would not be fair +to lump them all together, for the evils they produce are by no means +distributed by them in equal proportion. One must differentiate. +Fundamentally, all education is proceeding on a false principle. In this +respect it is necessary to blame education systems, institutions, school +teachers, tutors, governesses, and parents alike; for all are engaged in +keeping up an educational delusion that is working great harm to the +world in general.</p> + +<p>But when we come to consider the amount of evil produced by each of +these factors, it will be seen at once that there is a good deal to +choose between them. The private tutor, under present methods of +teaching, is in a far better position to encourage the individual +development of a child than is the schoolmaster who has the care of a +class. Children can contend, to a certain extent, against the tyranny of +the tutor; they can force their own wishes upon his attention should +they possess the necessary strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span> of character. But the strongest +must succumb to the school system. Here there is no latitude to +particular pupils, no concession made to idiosyncrasies of mind or +character. The system must not be relaxed, and in consequence everybody +has to be subjected to precisely the same course of study.</p> + +<p>Children begin to receive instruction at a very early age. The usual +plan is to take a child the moment it is able to string enough words +together to form ideas, and to subject it to a methodical process of +teaching. The custom of beginning what is called a child's education at +a tender age is verified by the fact that the State now compels, or +rather pretends to compel, parents to send their children to school at +the age of five, whilst large numbers of the children of the poor are +voluntarily sent to school at three years of age, or even younger. It +will be observed, therefore, that the State, as far as the masses of the +people are concerned, takes the child in hand at the most impressionable +period of its existence.</p> + +<p>The instruction of infants is not a very difficult task, if all that is +aimed at is to teach them certain elementary subjects. At five years of +age children will generally learn with avidity. Their minds are just +sufficiently formed to be receptive, and as all knowledge is a blank to +them they are ready to learn anything, within the limits of their +comprehension, that the teacher may choose to put before them. This +would place upon the latter a very heavy responsibility if the matter +were left entirely to his discretion. But this is by no means the case; +the course of instruction is fixed beforehand by the school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">{28}</a></span> managers. +It may differ slightly in schools of varying types; but in the main it +is identical in all the essentials.</p> + +<p>To what extent this variation may occur is, however, entirely beside the +point. What should be noted in this connection is that each school, and +for the matter of that every private teacher, has a fixed plan of +instruction which is more or less rigidly enforced. In the case of the +school, as has already been stated, no attention whatever is paid to +individual requirements. All are subjected to exactly the same process, +for better or for worse. The child, therefore, as soon as it begins to +attend school is compelled to learn certain things.</p> + +<p>The stock subjects are reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are +necessary accomplishments in all stations of life, and education without +them would be practically impossible. I do not disparage them in the +least. But there is a good deal to be said about the method of teaching +them, and the grave error of making them the principal objective of +elementary teaching.</p> + +<p>In this connection it is both interesting and instructive to note a +significant alteration in the Day School Code issued by the Board of +Education. Until quite recently reading, writing, and arithmetic were +classed under the Code as 'obligatory subjects' in infant schools. +Article 15 of the Code now reads: 'The course of instruction in infant +schools and classes should, as a rule, include—Suitable instruction, +writing, and numbers,' etc. Compare this with the same passage contained +in former Codes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span> 'The subjects of instruction,' it runs, 'for which +grants may be made are the following: (<i>a</i>) <span class="smcap">Obligatory +Subjects</span>—Reading, writing, arithmetic; hereinafter called "the +elementary subjects,"' etc.</p> + +<p>This amendment is a recognition of the fact that nothing can be more +detrimental to education than hard-and-fast rules. It is a protest +against the general assumption that the curricula of schools must be of +a more or less uniform pattern, and puts an end to the absurdity of the +central authority prescribing subjects to be taught in all elementary +schools, regardless of varying circumstances or the possibility of +improved methods of teaching.</p> + +<p>Formerly the pernicious custom existed of examining the pupils, at the +annual visit of the inspector, in stereotyped subjects. Matthew Arnold, +reporting to the Education Department in 1867, observed: 'The mode of +teaching in the primary schools has certainly fallen off in +intelligence, spirit, and inventiveness during the four or five years +which have elapsed since my last report. It could not well be otherwise. +In a country where everyone is prone to rely too much on mechanical +processes, and too little on intelligence, a change in the Education +Department's regulations, which, by making two-thirds of the Government +grant depend upon a mechanical examination, inevitably gives a +mechanical turn to the school teaching, a mechanical turn to the +inspection, is, and must be, trying to the intellectual life of the +school. In the inspection the mechanical examination of individual +scholars in reading a short passage, writing a short passage, and +working two or three sums, cannot but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span> take the lion's share of room and +importance, inasmuch as two-thirds of the Government grant depend upon +it.... In the game of mechanical contrivances the teachers will in the +end beat us; and as it is now found possible, by ingenious preparation, +to get children through the Revised Code examination in reading, +writing, and ciphering without their really knowing how to read, write, +and cipher, so it will with practice no doubt be found possible to get +the three-fourths of the one-fifth of the children over six through the +examination in grammar, geography, and history without their really +knowing any one of these three matters.'</p> + +<p>Throughout the whole of his career as an inspector of elementary schools +Arnold had to reiterate this complaint again and again. He saw the +incentive to cramming provided by the mode of distributing the grants, +and he perceived the uselessness of the type of instruction engendered +by it.</p> + +<p>To-day all this has been changed. There is no such thing now as a +compulsory annual examination in the three elementary subjects. It has +been finally abolished by the central authority. The duty of the +inspectors is no longer to examine the children, but to investigate the +methods of teaching, the qualifications of the teachers, and so forth. +They are, it is true, empowered to examine children when they think it +advisable to do so; but they are directed to use this power sparingly, +and in exceptional cases.</p> + +<p>The Department at Whitehall does not, unfortunately, exist for the +purpose of abolishing education<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span> systems. It has been called into +existence for the sole purpose of distributing grants of public money in +aid of elementary education and for the support of training-colleges for +teachers. The exercise of this function has necessitated the framing of +a code of regulations to be observed by schools wishing to qualify +themselves for the grant. This code is revised each year, and has +undergone some remarkable changes of late. There is a distinct tendency +to make it as elastic as possible, with the obvious aim of encouraging +variety in the schools and in the methods of teaching.</p> + +<p>For an example of this tendency one need only compare the present +conditions attaching to the payment of the principal grant to infant +schools with those that were in force a few years ago. The higher grant +was formerly given if the scholars were taught under a certificated +teacher, or under a teacher not less than eighteen years of age, +approved by the inspector, and in a room properly constructed and +furnished for the instruction of infants. There was also a proviso that +the infants should be taught 'suitably to their age.' The new code +contains the following regulation:</p> + +<p>'A principal grant of 17s. or 16s. is made to infant schools and +classes. The Board shall decide which, if either, of these grants shall +be paid after considering the report and recommendation of the inspector +upon each of the following four points: (<i>a</i>) The suitability of the +instruction to the circumstances of the children and the neighbourhood; +(<i>b</i>) the thoroughness and intelligence with which the instruction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">{32}</a></span> is +given; (<i>c</i>) the sufficiency and suitability of the staff; (<i>d</i>) the +discipline and organization.'</p> + +<p>Working in this spirit, the Board of Education is able to mitigate some +of the evils of a State system. But it cannot attack them at the roots +without initiating a complete revolution. Out and out reforms of this +kind are only politically practicable when they are demanded by the +irresistible voice of a strong public opinion. The public are misled as +to the true issues by the intrigues of political parties. The conflict +is narrowed down by party politicians, who have particular interests to +serve, to a mere squabble about school boards, voluntary schools, local +authorities, and religious instruction.</p> + +<p>The consequence is that these side issues have come to be regarded as +the great education question of the day. It is not easy to stir up any +deep feeling about the comparative merits of the two classes of +elementary schools. Most people do not care a jot whether their children +go to one or the other. It is not the masses who agitate about +denominational or secular teaching, but those limited classes who have +some direct interest in matters affecting religion.</p> + +<p>But who would not cast aside their lethargy, if they were made to +understand that the question to be decided is not whether this or that +type of school should be supported, but whether the present system of +education should be entirely discarded in favour of an altogether new +plan? that behind all these petty controversies lie great issues, +affecting the fundamental principles of education, which must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span> pushed +to the front unless the degeneration of the race—an inevitable result +of the present educational method—is to be continued indefinitely?</p> + +<p>Let people consider for a moment what is effected by the present system. +The child, as we have seen, is taken by the State at an early age and +subjected, for the most part, to a careful drilling in the three +elementary subjects. There is no harm in knowing how to read and write; +it is a very necessary accomplishment. A little arithmetic is also +indispensable to the fulfilment of many of the commonest duties of +everyday life. But, apart from the iniquity of cramming or forcing the +brain in a particular direction, it must be recollected that by imposing +certain subjects upon the undeveloped mind of a child, others are +necessarily excluded. The process therefore, when rigidly carried out, +has very serious and far-reaching effects. It prevents the development +of the mind in any direction but that which is being enforced.</p> + +<p>The harm done to the individual child by this means is incalculable. On +the very threshold of the development of its faculties according to +natural instincts this development is violently arrested by an +artificial operation. Nor does the evil end here. This interference with +Nature is carried on throughout the whole school career of the child, +and the tradition flourishes in a modified form in the colleges and +universities. It is, in fact, the vital principle of modern education.</p> + +<p>These schools in which the children of the people are taught are nothing +more than factories for turning out a uniformly-patterned article. They +do not succeed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">{34}</a></span> in their object of conferring what is called an +education upon their pupils, but they contrive to drive out all original +ideas without implanting any useful knowledge in their place. The +general result of this wholesale manufacture of dummies will be dealt +with directly. The intention here is merely to point out that the +practical working of the machinery of State education is to check the +natural development of the mind, and to unfit those whom it has +victimized, not only for one, but for all occupations that demand manual +dexterity or practical intelligence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE GREATEST MISERY OF THE GREATEST NUMBER</span></h2> + + +<p>It is now time to consider the effect of this system of compulsory +education upon the masses of the people. In the first two chapters an +attempt was made to sketch some of the anomalies brought about by the +educational methods of our public schools and universities, and by the +pernicious system of public competitive examinations. We will now turn +our attention exclusively to the masses, and endeavour to see what +national instruction does for them.</p> + +<p>The common people labour under the delusion that children who have +passed the standards of an elementary school are educated. They have +been fitted, according to the popular belief, for a superior station in +life. The first ambition of parents is, therefore, for their child to +obtain a post suitable to its supposed scholarship.</p> + +<p>Of course, the truth is, as we all know, that the product of the public +elementary school is utterly useless, and generally wanting in +intelligence. But these facts are only discovered by the victims +themselves after years of bitter experience. Totally unfitted for any +station in life, many of them leave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span> school full of self-confidence in +the belief that their superior education will secure them a good +opening. Despising all manual labour, they seek situations as clerks, +shop-assistants, and such-like. The result is, of course, an over-supply +of candidates for employment of this kind. In consequence, the girls +have to fall back upon domestic service; while the boys swell the ranks +of unskilled labourers and unemployed loafers, or, worse still, betake +themselves to a life of dishonesty.</p> + +<p>Nowhere are the evil effects of this education system more strikingly +illustrated than in the country districts. The children of agricultural +labourers and small farmers are given instruction which will be of no +earthly use to them in the occupation for which they are naturally +fitted. Instead of being prepared for country pursuits, they are given +an inferior type of all-round education which is equally useless +everywhere. When they leave school they can read, write, add, subtract, +divide, and multiply—after a fashion; they can mispronounce a few +French words, without being able to construct a single grammatical +sentence or understand a syllable that is said to them; they know enough +shorthand to write down simple words at one half the speed of ordinary +handwriting; and they have acquired by rote a few dry facts from history +and geography, all of which will be totally obliterated from their +memories within a space of twelve months.</p> + +<p>Shorthand is not a very promising preparation for the plough; and French +and mathematics are equally valueless accomplishments for the carting of +manure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span> Dairymaids need neither history nor geography; they can even do +without grammar. Consequently these unhappy school-children have been +rendered useless for all the practical purposes of the life they ought +to lead. The result is inevitable. There is a constant, never-ceasing +exodus from the country into the towns. The rural school victims are +incited to look for employment in an altogether different sphere from +that for which nature originally intended them.</p> + +<p>Philosophers and politicians crack their heads over this mysterious +problem of town immigration; but it is really a very simple affair. We +are pretending to educate the rural population by conferring upon them +the blessings of French and shorthand. The natural consequence of our +excellent foresight in spreading this type of culture throughout the +land is that there is a scarcely remarkable dearth of rural labour. Farm +hands are not quite as plentiful as they used to be, and there is some +difficulty in getting damsels to churn butter. But, on the other hand, +we are driving this mob of cultured yokels into the towns to crowd out +local labour, to starve, and to fill the gaols and workhouses.</p> + +<p>London has at the present moment mainly to thank this process of +'education' for the overcrowding problem which is becoming every day +more dangerous and pressing. It is useless to talk of pulling down slums +and building up model blocks, or of inventing fresh means of +communication to convey artisans to suburban dwellings, whilst the real +cause of the evil is left untouched. Young men and women will continue +to pour in from the country districts as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">{38}</a></span> long as a smattering of +geography and arithmetic flatters them into the delusion that they are +educated, and that knowledge of the useless kind that has been drummed +into them is the high-road to fortune.</p> + +<p>It is, however, of little use to urge overcrowding as a ground for +reforming educational methods. Few people are stirred by what to them is +a purely abstract question. They see nothing to indicate its existence, +and they know nothing of its evils. They seldom walk down the dreary +avenues of bricks and mortar which contain the houses of the working +classes; and if they do, they scarcely realize the fact that inside the +humble, dingy little dwellings whole families are crowded into single +rooms, share each other's beds, and are even thankful to find sleeping +accommodation upon the floor.</p> + +<p>But everybody appreciates and understands the servant question. That +touches the comfort of the individual too nearly to be ignored. The +rapid extinction of good servants, the insolence and inefficiency of the +average domestic—these are facts of everyday life that will come home +to the suffering upper and middle classes. It is not because they are +educated that domestic servants have deteriorated, however, but on +account of the profound state of ignorance in which their elementary +schooling has left them, leading them to the misapprehension that, from +the standpoint of culture, they are as good as anybody and certainly +above their menial position.</p> + +<p>Servants have as little need of French verbs and hieroglyphics as the +ploughboy or the dairymaid. There are many useful things that might be +learnt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span> by a person who wished to be trained for domestic service; but +it is rare enough to find a cook that, amongst other items of a liberal +education, has been given cooking lessons. In this respect education is +like food: what is one man's meat is another man's poison. We do not +wish to teach book-keeping to a washerwoman, or fancy ironing to a +private secretary. Then, why stuff artisans, domestic servants, and farm +labourers with common denominators and the rules of syntax? It may be +highly satisfactory to schoolteachers to succeed in making their class +read aloud passages from Shakespeare and Milton without dropping more +than fifty per cent. of the aspirates, or mispronouncing more than half +a dozen multi-syllabic words. But, unfortunately, there is no demand for +parlourmaids who can quote 'Hamlet' amid the intervals of waiting at +table, or for page-boys capable of spouting 'Paradise Lost' for the +intellectual improvement of the servants' hall.</p> + +<p>Perhaps these instances show as well as anything the grotesque absurdity +of collecting a number of children together, and attempting to teach +them things that they are not fitted to do, whilst no effort is made to +cultivate in each individual the faculties that are really capable of +development. It is not in the least surprising that occupations +involving manual labour are for the most part filled with dissatisfied +and incompetent grumblers, who have been obligingly provided by a State +system of education.</p> + +<p>But if any further illustration be needed of the superficiality and +harmfulness of the education forced upon the masses, we have it +glaringly enough in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span> cheap literature of to-day. This stupendous +mass of bosh could not have been produced unless there were a demand for +it. Some people are never tired of abusing the millionaires who have +made their fortunes by providing the illiterate nonsense that forms the +intellectual food of the vast majority of the public. It is wholly +unjustifiable and illogical to blame them. They are not founders of new +schools of thought in the field of literature; they are men of business, +and do not pretend to be anything worse. As such, it is their vocation +to find out what the public want, and to supply it to them. They have no +interest in making the million take their literature after it has been +passed through a mincer. They chop up news and hash grammar at half +price because the patrons of cheap papers and periodicals like their +literature served up in that fashion.</p> + +<p>It is not the millionaire trader who is to blame for this state of +affairs—he merely profits by its existence. The real culprit is the +education system, which is the universal provider of the peculiar type +of culture that interests itself in the number of beef sandwiches that +would be required to encircle the earth, or the rate at which the +population of the world would have to increase within a given time to +enable its inhabitants, by mounting upon each other's heads, to reach +the moon.</p> + +<p>The enormous demand for this class of literature is the most pregnant +evidence of the miserable effects of misapplied education and defective +instruction that could well be brought forward. But it is by no means +confined to the uncultured masses who have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span> been driven through the +standards of an elementary school. Thousands who have been put through +the paces of what is called 'higher education' may be seen in +railway-carriages, at health resorts, or in the public libraries, deeply +immersed in cheap-jack reading-matter that no self-respecting person of +moderate intelligence would care even to be capable of specifying.</p> + +<p>This painful sight, which cannot have escaped the notice of the least +observant, must surely lead the reflective man or woman to doubt the +value of educational methods that have led to no better result. It is +monstrous to think of years spent in grinding out syntax rules, +mathematics, Latin, French, geography, science, history, composition, +and a dozen other branches of knowledge, in order to develop a taste for +sensational rags, middle-class magazines, and inferior fiction.</p> + +<p>If the process were coupled with no worse consequences than this, nobody +of the least pretension to culture would wish to see it continued +another day. But we have seen that the mischief goes far beyond mere +superficiality and bad taste. It carries its pernicious influence into +every social problem by which modern statesmen are perplexed and +harassed. From the housing question to the dearth of servants we feel +its baneful effects. And as if it were not enough to have unfitted the +masses of the people for the occupations best suited to the great bulk +of them, to have instilled into the minds of working-men's children, by +means of illiterate Shakespeare recitations and burlesque efforts to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span> +grasp geography, a contempt for the skilled labour of the artisan—this +education process has brought about a general deterioration in the +manners of the lower classes that has long been a subject of general +complaint.</p> + +<p>Nobody wishes to see the common people in a constant attitude of +servility towards the classes above them. To thinking people nothing is +more painful than to observe such signs of a want of proper self-respect +and independence on the part of freeborn men and women of whatever +standing in the social scale. But it is a significant fact that +educating the masses, in the sense in which that term seems to be +generally employed, has had the effect of eradicating from them all +respect for education. The educated man of real attainments is not +looked up to in the smallest degree by the average individual of the +lower orders. It would be useless to quote, in support of a statement +made in the presence of unexceptional members of the working classes, +the opinion of any recognised authority. For the matter of that, there +are many persons of a higher rank who are supposed to have enjoyed the +benefits of a more liberal type of education than that afforded by the +elementary school, who are equally unimpressed by the value of expert +knowledge.</p> + +<p>Whether it is that State-educated youths think that their +accomplishments have made them the equals of everybody else, or whether +the inanity of the system to which they have been subjected has given +them a contempt for learning, it would be difficult to determine. +Probably both misconceptions are evenly distributed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span> amongst the victims +of the process. But the fact that this should be the case at all speaks +eloquently for the crass ignorance which results from the confounding, +on the part of so-called educationists, of mere fact-cramming and +subject-compulsion with the proper development of the human faculties.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE OUTPUT OF PRIGS</span></h2> + + +<p>Having considered the evils produced by sham education, such as is +compulsorily given to the masses of the people, we can proceed to +examine into the average results effected by more genuine and efficient +systems of cramming and instruction. It is not in the least degree +necessary, for this purpose, to go into minute comparisons of the +various types of secondary schools and colleges that have been +established in this country. In the actual method of teaching there is +little to choose between them. All have practically a common aim, +namely, the preparation of boys and young men for examinations.</p> + +<p>Of course, all boys who go to school are not destined for professions +that necessitate the passing of an examination, competitive or +otherwise. But that does not disturb the school authorities a jot, or +involve the slightest relaxation of the school system. The boys are +crammed just the same. Whoever wishes to pass through the mill must go +in like a pig at one end and come out as a sausage at the other. There +is no middle course except the private tutor; and he, owing to the +defects of his own early training<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span> and to the terrific Conservatism +peculiar to his profession, probably knows no better process than the +familiar routine of cram and idea-suppression.</p> + +<p>The whole of school life is a scramble for marks. The school managers +and masters are interested in getting the boys stuffed with facts, +dates, figures, and inflections, because the prestige of the school—and +consequently its commercial success—is mainly dependent upon the +creditable placing of pupils in public examinations. Therefore the boys +are encouraged, or rather compelled, to occupy themselves with what will +best conduce to secure this object, regardless of their own wishes or +obvious inclinations.</p> + +<p>A boy might enter a grammar-school, or one of the great public schools, +teeming to his finger-tips with an inborn thirst for scientific +knowledge; he might spend all his spare moments making crude experiments +with an air-pump, or gazing at planets through a cheap astronomical +telescope; he might fail dismally to grasp the rudiments of the Latin +grammar, and be incapable of conjugating an irregular verb; but his nose +would be kept down to the grindstone of the school curriculum all the +same, and not the smallest attention paid to his obvious bent of mind.</p> + +<p>He had been placed there, the authorities would say, to receive a +general education, and a general education he should have. If during the +process all the scientific enthusiasm is ground out of him, that is not +the business of the schoolmaster. The boy, for the ordinary purposes of +instruction, is an empty bottle into which a certain prescription is to +be poured. The prescription has been made up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">{46}</a></span> beforehand, and cannot be +altered. The school undertakes to administer a draught, but it refuses +to bother about diagnosing each case. There is only one method of +treatment, and every patient who enters the establishment has to be +submitted to it.</p> + +<p>There have been, of course, enlightened pedagogues. The names of Arnold +and Thring will always stand out prominently in the history of English +school life, and it will be a bad day indeed for the youth in our public +schools when their traditional influence shall have been entirely +obliterated. They grafted upon the established methods of teaching a +liberal and broad-minded effort to bring out what was best in each pupil +by other influences. 'It is no wisdom,' Dr. Arnold declared, 'to make +boys prodigies of information; but it is our wisdom and our duty to +cultivate their faculties each in its season, first the memory and +imagination, and then the judgment; to furnish them with the means, and +to excite the desire of improving themselves, and to wait with +confidence God's blessing on the result.'</p> + +<p>Edward Thring wrote the following remarks in his diary:</p> + +<p>'Education is not bookworm work, but the giving the subtle power of +observation, the faculty of seeing, the eye and mind to catch hidden +truths and new creative genius. If the cursed rule-mongering and +technical terms could be banished to limbo, something might be done. +Three parts of teaching and learning in England is the hiding common +sense and disguising ignorance under phrases.'</p> + +<p>No stranger anomaly can be conceived than that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span> presented by the +constant effort of these two eminent headmasters to undo the evils of a +universal system of education. It is not often that people strive to set +their house in order after this fashion, and all honour is due to them +for the courageous endeavour. The mistake they made was in tinkering +with a system inherently bad and useless, instead of taking the bold +step of abolishing it altogether and beginning afresh on new and sound +principles.</p> + +<p>The energies of schoolmasters of the type of Thring and Arnold are, in +fact, concentrated mainly upon a constant struggle to prevent the +ordinary process of school instruction from producing prigs. Stupid boys +are generally rendered more stupid by teaching, for reasons that will be +analyzed later on. But boys whose brains are amenable to academic +training are liable, unless the environment of the school is peculiarly +unfavourable to the development of the species, to become priggish.</p> + +<p>It is the purely academic training that produces the prig. Football, +cricket, and other athletic sports are not favourable to his growth; and +he receives equally little encouragement from his companions. The +important point about him is that he is not a natural product at all, +but the outcome of an artificial drilling of the mind. In a word, he is +the embodiment of the education system, uncorrected by fortuitous +influences and conditions. Everybody knows that gracefulness is not +acquired by means of stilted lessons in deportment, but that it consists +of natural muscular movement untrammelled by self-consciousness or +artifice. The same law of nature applies to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span> the working of the brain. +Stuffing a boy's head with so much knowledge is not developing his mind, +and the result must necessarily be as artificial as the process. The +mind becomes incapable of thinking individually and naturally; it +becomes pedantic and circumscribed, powerless to give simple expression +to simple thoughts; and the prig is made.</p> + +<p>It requires a great deal of kicking and hustling on the part of the +victim's schoolfellows to arrest this process, and the cure is generally +only effected outwardly. Priggishness cannot be eradicated from the +system in a moment, even by the most heroic measures. Its excision +involves a slow mental process, the converse of that which served to +call it into existence. The prig has to divest himself of the false +mental outlook imposed upon him by his education, and to begin all over +again. It is a hard lesson which can only be learnt in the school of +life, generally after humiliating experience and bitter suffering. Many +never succeed in learning it. There must be some material to work upon, +and probably their individuality, weak at the commencement and therefore +doubly in need of tender treatment and fostering care, has been +hopelessly crushed out of existence by the conventional training of +school and university.</p> + +<p>Under present conditions prigs can and do grow up everywhere. In some +educational institutions—notably in great public schools like Eton and +Harrow—they are more discouraged than in others; but the cramming +system has reached such proportions that all schools and colleges are +affected in a greater or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span> less degree. They infect our public life, as +we have seen; largely recruit our public service; and are in evidence in +the pulpit, at the schoolmaster's desk, on public platforms, in the +lecture-room of the university, and wherever the services of educated +men are employed.</p> + +<p>The ideals of men like Arnold and Thring cannot be carried out as long +as the examination system puts a premium upon cramming. 'I call that the +best theme,' said Dr. Arnold, alluding to original composition, 'which +shows that the boy has read and thought for himself; that the next best, +which shows that he has read several books, and digested what he has +read; and that the worst, which shows that he has followed but one book, +and followed that without reflection.'</p> + +<p>There is no time nowadays for a boy to read and think for himself. +Besides the examinations inside his own school for which he has to be +prepared, there are scholarships, university examinations, competitive +examinations for the civil service, and a host of other possibilities of +the kind, all of which necessitate the acquisition of an enormous number +of useless facts in every branch of learning.</p> + +<p>Too much attention is concentrated on the admirable physical product of +the athletic side of our public school and university life. This +advantage of the English system of education has been dwelt upon to such +an extent, that people are apt to overlook the fact that, side by side +with these fine specimens of healthy and for the most part +unintellectual manhood, we are manufacturing a purely academic article<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span> +of the least inspired and most retrogressive description.</p> + +<p>If somebody, wishing to make you acquainted with a friend, says to you: +'I want you to meet So-and-so; he was at Eton and Trinity Hall, and came +out tenth in the mathematical tripos,' you know exactly the kind of man +to whom you are going to be introduced. He will have a very proper +contempt for made-up ties, and will refuse to fasten the bottom button +of his waistcoat. You know beforehand the precise point of view that he +will take upon every conceivable topic, and the channels in which his +conversation is certain to flow.</p> + +<p>His entire mental horizon will be bounded by academic conventionalities +in such a cast-iron fashion that it would, you are well aware, waste +your time to attempt to extend its boundaries by the fraction of an +inch. If you say anything yourself out of the beaten track, you know +that you will be looked down upon as a fool or a faddist. The Eton stamp +will be upon his dress and manners; the Cambridge brand seared into +every crevice of his mind. There will be an individuality about him, but +it will be an individuality shared in common with hundreds of young men +of the same educational antecedents.</p> + +<p>That is the fault of the system. It takes away, or fails to evoke, the +distinguishing traits of each individual, and substitutes a kind of +manufactured personality according to the particular institution, or +type of institution, in which the educational metamorphosis has taken +place. 'A mob of boys,' said the man who raised Uppingham from complete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span> +obscurity to the front rank of public schools, 'cannot be educated.' It +is, nevertheless, the process that is going on all over the civilized +world. Reform does not lie alone in making instruction itself more +effective. As long as the principle is retained of forcing certain facts +and certain subjects into the mind of every boy, the country will +continue to breed conventionality, to produce a uniform type of useless +mediocrity, and to make prigs.</p> + +<p>This is, unfortunately, exactly what the average educationist aims at. +There is no disguise about the belief that conventional ideas, and the +manufacture of what is called average ability, are the sheet-anchor of +the State. And this type of fossilized Conservatism seems to grow in +proportion to the number of schools and colleges in the country.</p> + +<p>Lower-middle-class young men, of no intellectual predisposition at all, +are being turned out on all sides crammed with the narrowest type of +educational tradition. Prigs are produced wholesale; the worst and most +odious branch of the family being the semi-illiterate prig—the man who +gets drummed out of decent regimental messes, the man who wants to go on +the stage and declaim Shakespeare through his nose, the man who +vulgarizes the public service by dropping his h's in the great +Government departments, and others too numerous to be specified.</p> + +<p>Everything is vulgar that pretends to be what it is not. Priggishness is +an artificial mental condition that is far more common than people +generally suspect. We are most of us prigs, if we only knew it. The man +who is unable to get rid of conventions and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">{52}</a></span> to think for himself is a +prig. England is peopled with them. We meet them at every turn; we see +them driving the country to the dogs by sheer inability to grasp its +needs;—and we send our sons to the schools and universities to be +manufactured after the same pattern.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">BOY DEGENERATION</span></h2> + + +<p>If some boys thrive, according to ordinary school standards, on the +cramming system, what becomes of those to whose nature the process is +entirely antagonistic?</p> + +<p>The question is best answered by a glance at the schools themselves. +Take one of the great public schools, and it will be found that much the +same conditions are prevalent in every class or form. There is a small +percentage of boys at the top of each class who are considered the most +intelligent, and by whom most of the questions asked by the master are +answered. The remaining majority are divided into two sections, one of +which consists of what are termed boys of average ability, whilst the +other contains the lazy element, the refractory boys, and the dullards.</p> + +<p>In the last chapter we chiefly discussed those individuals who may be +taken as representing the average of the best results achieved by higher +schools and universities. These form, however, only a fraction of the +scholars who pass through such institutions. It still remains for us to +discover the rôle which is played by the other four-fifths in +school-life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span> According to scholastic methods of classification, the +bulk of this residue are boys of medium intelligence who plod on without +specially distinguishing themselves, and contrive, by dint of industry +and application, to blunder through the ordinary course of study without +coming to grief.</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to conjure up a more melancholy picture than that +presented by these plodders, whose work is rendered trebly hard by being +performed against the grain. They suffer more under the system than the +dull, the lazy, and the fractious, who escape its worst evils, either +because some active power of resistance comes to their rescue, or +because the mind itself is so formed as to be incapable of receiving +instruction imparted on the cramming principle.</p> + +<p>But the average mediocrity amongst schoolboys are often inferior in +ability both to those who rank above and below them in school +attainment. They neither profit by the teaching process, nor do they +possess those qualities that would enable them to resist its +consequences. Thus they fall between two stools, being carried out of +their natural sphere, and at the same time failing to attain such a +measure of artificial success as would afford them compensation for the +injury.</p> + +<p>Success in life is not an easy thing to generalize about. It is, +however, important to note as far as possible the results brought about +by school education. The boy who is trained to pass examinations has a +respectable chance of getting into some branch of the public service; +and, as we have seen, it is from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span> amongst his ranks that the permanent +officials of the various departments of Government are recruited. A +great number of those who distinguish themselves academically also pass +into the teaching profession; though a considerable percentage of +graduates, for reasons that will be discussed in due course, drift into +the ranks of the unemployed.</p> + +<p>The average schoolboy, who does his work mechanically and without +enthusiasm, probably furnishes the greatest number of examples of the +misplaced individual. His application to his studies is not natural; it +is enforced by what is called school discipline. That is to say, the +authorities devise every conceivable form of punishment to make a +constant grind at obligatory subjects less disagreeable than the +consequences of idleness. These are the simple arts by means of which +unwilling boys are driven, like cattle, along the highway of what is +termed, by an inaccurate application of the English language, knowledge.</p> + +<p>Anybody who has been coerced, and <i>pœna</i>ed, and flogged through the +curriculum of a public school will acknowledge that the performance is +not an exhilarating one for the victim. It is preposterous to dignify +this nigger-driving by the term 'education.' One might as well talk of +the Chinese eagerly embracing Christianity, when, as a matter of fact, +the missionaries have been forced upon them, like their foreign trade, +at the point of the bayonet.</p> + +<p>The wonder is that anybody survives the process and retains his sanity. +That many nervous temperaments and highly-gifted minds do not survive it +is a point of so much importance that it will be dealt with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">{56}</a></span> later on in +a separate chapter. What needs emphasizing here is that to make boys do +certain things under compulsion is not developing their faculties, but +is absolutely preventing their development; and secondly, that this +infamous but universal proceeding is responsible for a positive +degeneration amongst those whom it is supposed to educate and improve.</p> + +<p>Dr. Arnold held that a low standard of schoolboy morality was +inevitable. 'With regard to reforms at Rugby,' he wrote to a friend, +'give me credit, I must beg of you, for a most sincere desire to make it +a place of Christian education. At the same time, my object will be, if +possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope +to make; I mean that, from the natural imperfect state of boyhood, they +are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full development +upon their practice, and I suspect that a low standard of morals in many +respects must be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in +what I consider the boyhood of the human race.'</p> + +<p>In a letter to another friend he spoke still more strongly on the +subject. 'Since I began this letter,' he wrote, 'I have had some of the +troubles of school-keeping; and one of those specimens of the evil of +boy nature which makes me always unwilling to undergo the responsibility +of advising any man to send his son to a public school. There has been a +system of persecution carried on by the bad against the good, and then, +when complaint was made to me, there came fresh persecution on that very +account, and divers instances of boys joining in it out of pure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span> +cowardice, both physical and moral, when, if left to themselves, they +would rather have shunned it. And the exceedingly small number of boys +who can be relied on for active and steady good on these occasions, and +the way in which the decent and respectable of ordinary life (Carlyle's +"Shams") are sure on these occasions to swim with the stream and take +part with the evil, makes me strongly feel exemplified what the +Scriptures say about the strait gate and the wide one—a view of human +nature which, when looking on human life in its full dress of decencies +and civilizations, we are apt, I imagine, to find it hard to realize. +But here, in the nakedness of boy nature, one is quite able to +understand how there could not be found so many as even ten righteous in +a whole city.'</p> + +<p>This sweeping statement has been quoted because it comes with double +force from an undisputed authority such as the late Dr. Arnold. +Everybody who has had experience of school-life knows that the average +boy spends a great deal of his time in cheating the masters, lying to +the authorities, and playing every sort and kind of mischievous or +disreputable prank that comes into his head. But it is better to have +this fact testified to by a man who has been in a position to observe +large numbers of boys over a very extended period. The accusation of +exaggeration or hasty generalization cannot then be well sustained.</p> + +<p>Where, however, I venture to differ with Dr. Arnold is in the assumption +that this low standard of morality must be ascribed to boy nature alone. +Undoubtedly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">{58}</a></span> this is the case in part. But there is a far more potent +cause than natural instinct. It is to be found in the system of +education which not only fails to develop and encourage the boy's +individual tastes or faculties, but actually forces upon him occupations +that are, for the most part, absolutely foreign to his nature. This is +the real key to the vagaries of boyhood, and without such an explanation +one must hold, with the great headmaster of Rugby, that boy nature is +inherently bad.</p> + +<p>Boys, like other rational beings, must have their interests and +amusements. If the legitimate and normal ones are prohibited, solace +will be sought in those which are illegitimate and abnormal. By failing +to encourage the faculties that nature intended a particular boy to +develop, a vacuum is created. This vacuum must be filled up, and it is +no earthly use trying to fill it up, against the grain, with +mathematical problems or the irregular inflections of Latin verbs. The +average boy is as little capable of taking an absorbing interest in +these exhilarating features of the school curriculum as would be the +average Hottentot.</p> + +<p>Every healthy boy stores up energy. It should be the first object of the +schoolmaster—if such a being ought to have any existence at all—to see +that this energy is not allowed to waste. Natural forces of this kind do +not, it must be recollected, evaporate. There they are, and the laws of +nature have decreed that they shall be constantly expended and renewed. +If this or that boy's store of energy is not turned into one channel, it +will expend itself through another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span> If the schoolmaster were to take +the trouble to find out the particular bent of a pupil, and were then to +proceed to foster and educate it, all the energy of the boy would be +used in this useful and congenial work. But this can never be the case +until the present methods of instruction have been revolutionized.</p> + +<p>The discipline upon which schools pride themselves so much is an +altogether false and pernicious discipline. The only liberty which is +vouchsafed to schoolboys is outside of their work. No doubt it is an +excellent thing that boys should be free to choose the manner in which +they make use of their leisure hours. There would be a great uproar +amongst parents if their sons were forbidden to join in the games they +wished to play, and compelled to play those for which they had no taste. +It would be considered monstrous to remove a boy who was a capital +bowler from the cricket-field, and make him go in for fives or racquets; +or, to use an Eton illustration, to take a 'wet bob' who was a promising +oarsman and might row in the school eight at Henley, and turn him into +the playing-fields to become an inferior 'dry bob.'</p> + +<p>But the same arguments that apply to physical discipline apply also to +mental discipline. In the class-room there is practically no latitude +given to the boy at all. In many schools, it is true, there is the +choice of a classical or a modern side; but the choice is the parents', +not the boy's. The latter is always treated, in reference to his +school-work, as a machine. There is simply the offer of a classical +strait-waistcoat or a modern strait-waistcoat; and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">{60}</a></span> boy is put into +one or the other according to the fancy of a third person.</p> + +<p>Strait-waistcoats have long been discarded in lunatic asylums. It has +been discovered by medical experts that anything like coercion is the +worst possible treatment for the brain. Whilst our lunatics, however, +are treated in this humane and rational spirit, the educational expert +is busily occupied in destroying the delicate fabric of the schoolboy +brain by the very methods that have been discontinued in the case of +madmen.</p> + +<p>The school curriculum, or any other arbitrary course of study, is a +mental strait-waistcoat. It has a more immoral and degenerating effect +upon the mind because it is applied directly. If physical restraint acts +perniciously upon the reasoning powers, a far greater degree of harm +must be caused by direct mental restraint. Yet nobody, from Arnold and +Thring down to the professional crammer of to-day, seems to have grasped +this simple fact.</p> + +<p>Schoolmasters are like mothers. They imagine that because a boy happens +to have survived their system of teaching the latter must necessarily be +the one perfect method—just as the fond mother, whose infant has been +enabled by means of a phenomenal digestion to outlive a particular food, +believes that it is the only food upon which babies can possibly be +brought up.</p> + +<p>When we come to survey impartially the effects of this system of +education upon boys in general, it must surely be brought home to us +that something is radically wrong somewhere. If a few manage to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span> survive +the treatment and remain the ten righteous individuals, what is to be +said of the degeneration of the majority? It is surely absurd, with the +anomalies and defects of the whole method of educating youth staring one +in the face, to ascribe it to mere boy nature.</p> + +<p>The truth is that in boyhood the natural tendencies incline to push +their way boisterously to the front. They are constantly trying to find +an egress. But the parent and the pedagogue, in their blindness, can +only see in this law of nature a wicked and perverse propensity that +must be restrained at all hazards by a speedy application of the +educational strait-waistcoat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE STRUGGLE OF THE EDUCATED</span></h2> + + +<p>So far we have chiefly discussed the effect produced upon the individual +by a compulsory course of study. It has been seen that he suffers in a +number of ways, through being subjected, from his earliest childhood, to +a more or less inflexible method of training. All of these, however, +have been directly attributable to his education. We may now consider, +before pursuing the subject any further, certain disabilities that may +be traced to the same cause, but which are brought about indirectly.</p> + +<p>It is bad enough, as most of us will have perceived, to compel a boy to +learn certain things whether they are congenial to him or not. But it is +preposterous that the same stock of knowledge should be forced upon all +alike. This is, however, exactly what is being done in every educational +establishment throughout the Empire, with the most disastrous +consequences to the victims of the system.</p> + +<p>Let us turn once more to the map of life for an illustration.</p> + +<p>The average educated man begins to learn his alphabet at the age of four +or five. During the following years he receives the necessary grounding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span> +to prepare him for the lower forms of a public school. At eleven, or +thereabouts, he commences his school career. Throughout the whole of +this period he is put through a course of study identical in every +respect with that pursued by his schoolfellows. Every boy in the school +is crammed with the same facts, and in the same way. The sixth-form boy +is exactly like the rest of his class, exactly like the sixth-form boy +of ten years ago, and probably exactly like the sixth-form boy of ten +years hence. Not only does he possess precisely the same knowledge as +his companions, hold the same opinions, and enjoy the same mental +horizon, but he has acquired uniform tastes and habits. In other words, +the school has stamped upon him a common individuality shared by all its +pupils.</p> + +<p>After he has left school the same process is carried on at the +university. Here he is crammed again with the same facts, the same +rules, and the same ideas, borrowed from the same people, that are being +dinned into scores of other young men who are working for their degree. +Having gone conscientiously through this routine, he takes his degree +with the rest.</p> + +<p>This aim being accomplished, his educational career is over. He has +graduated; that is to say, he has obtained a certificate to the effect +that he has acquired a certain regulation stock of knowledge.</p> + +<p>What happens next?</p> + +<p>The unhappy graduate suddenly makes the discovery that his university +qualification is not the ready passport to employment that he had +fondly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">{64}</a></span> imagined it to be. Unless he has a reasonable chance of a curacy +and chooses to enter the Church, or can scrape together a few pupils to +coach, or has the means to go on reading for the Bar or cramming for the +public examinations, his prospects of immediate starvation are +excessively favourable.</p> + +<p>It was remarked some years ago by a writer who had spent a great deal of +time in investigating life at common lodging-houses in the poorer +districts of the Metropolis, that a startling number of university men +seemed to drift into them. Yet these are the men who are supposed to +have qualified themselves most highly for the holding of good positions. +In some way, therefore, it is clear that this academic training has +disadvantages which serve to handicap its victims severely in practical +life. It cannot be mere accident that those who, according to all +educational tradition, are classed as the most fit for responsible +employment necessitating good mental ability, actually labour under +obvious disabilities in this connection.</p> + +<p>Nobody can urge that there is not enough work of a nature demanding high +attainments to go round. Literature itself offers an enormous field for +the exhibition of special talent; and there are many other walks in life +where mental superiority is sadly needed, and which should therefore +provide ample work and remuneration for those who show capability and +resource. But in spite of all these openings some of our scholars are +driven to eke out a miserable pauper's existence in the common +lodging-house, or even in extreme cases to solicit parish relief.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span></p> + +<p>The explanation of this strange anomaly lies simply in the fact that the +educational mill not only manufactures dummies, but makes them all +exactly alike. In the higher types of schools and colleges there is +generally a choice of three patterns—the classical dummy, the modern +language dummy, and the scientific dummy. But each pattern is very like +the other, for all the practical purposes of this life; that is to say, +they are all equally useless and equally unfitted for the task of moving +forward with the times.</p> + +<p>The result of fitting out everybody with a common stock of knowledge is +to institute a disastrous form of intellectual competition. Thousands of +young men are being equipped annually by our schools and universities +for the performance of precisely the same functions. Intelligence +brought wholesale to the market in this stereotyped form is in much the +same unhappy condition as unskilled labour. There is a supply far in +excess of the demand, and consequently employment cannot be found for +all.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the profession of literature and journalism affords the aptest +illustration of the utter folly and uselessness of producing these +machine-made scholars, all filled chock-full with the same ideas, facts, +figures, and dates. Here, as in reality everywhere else, there is need +of originality, intellectual independence, insight, judgment, and +imagination. Journalism wants ideas; facts are amply provided by the +news agency and the reporter. The gates of literature are opened wide +for striking and vigorous thought, trenchant criticism, and imaginative +flights of fancy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span></p> + +<p>What has the average academically-trained man to offer? He has an +assortment of second-hand ideas borrowed from Plato and Socrates, from +Ovid and Virgil and Horace; he can echo Voltaire, Goethe, Kant, +Shakespeare, Dante; he can dish up Aristotle, Pythagoras, Bacon, +Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Davy, Faraday and Darwin. He can borrow +illustrations from classical mythology; he knows the Dynasties of +ancient Egypt; and he is able to furnish, without reference to history, +the exact date upon which King John signed Magna Charta, and the precise +number of battles fought in the Wars of the Roses.</p> + +<p>Such are the literary accomplishments of numberless university +graduates, and it is small wonder that they often lead to the workhouse. +The demand for the dressed-up ideas of the poets, philosophers, and +scientists of a former generation is not great. Those who like their +literature at second hand prefer snippets from the Newgate Calendar to +the wise saws of Bacon; and they would rather have their blood stirred +by quotations from 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' or 'Pay, pay, +pay,' than read a paraphrase of the combined wisdom of all the +philosophers of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>The same argument holds good in relation to other professions and +occupations. The university graduate has no practical accomplishments. +He may be an ornamental, but he is certainly not <i>ipso facto</i> a useful, +member of society. The only thing for which he is pre-eminently fitted +is to assist others, by means of extension lectures and cramming, to be +his companions in misfortune. But this can hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span> be designated a +beneficial sphere of activity, and he is handicapped in all he +undertakes by the fact that thousands of others possess the same +educational equipment as himself.</p> + +<p>Why should every educated man be like the other? There is absolutely no +reason for it. The similarity is purely artificial. Nature never +intended all men to be cast in the same mould, and it is only the +perversity of man himself that has brought the human race down to such a +level. The stupidity of giving every scholar the same mental outfit is +so self-evident as scarcely to need further comment. Even following the +modern plan of stuffing minds instead of developing them, one would have +thought that common sense would dictate the necessity of manufacturing +as much variety as possible.</p> + +<p>The whole trend of evolution is to differentiate; and if natural laws +were not completely disregarded by education systems, the absurdity of +filling the world with two or three human species instead of a hundred +thousand would never have been perpetrated. As long as this arbitrary +interference with Nature is continued, educated men will not cease to be +a drug in the market. Its immediate effect is not to endow the +individual with special qualities, but to handicap him heavily for the +real business of life.</p> + +<p>Competition amongst the 'well-educated' is not the result of +over-population or of a too liberal supply of competent men. It is +caused by uniformity of attainment; and until this is generally +realized, one of the most pressing social problems cannot hope to find a +solution.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">WOMAN'S EMPIRE OVER MAN</span></h2> + + +<p>Men have always been reluctant to acknowledge the truth about woman's +real position in the world. They keep up a beautiful kind of masculine +myth about the mastery of the sterner sex and their mental superiority, +and they talk of woman in a patronizing way as man's helpmate.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt—it is a physiological fact—that man possesses more +brain-power or capacity than woman. But woman has, on the other hand, an +enormous advantage in the use to which she has put her mental machinery +from time immemorial. The truth is that women think out things for +themselves a great deal more than does the average man. As, however, +they concentrate their attention for the most part on what are called +the minor interests of life, whilst men are occupied with bigger and +more important things, it has come to be accepted that the mind of woman +is inferior to the mind of man.</p> + +<p>In one sense this is true. Potentially, woman's mind has not the +capacity of man's. One has only to look for female Shakespeares, +Newtons, Bismarcks, Raphaels, and Beethovens, to verify the fact beyond +dispute. But we are dealing here with existing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span> circumstances, not with +potentialities. Therefore I have no hesitation in saying that, as a +general rule, women use what brain power they have to much better +advantage than men; which amounts to a confession that woman, apart from +intellectual specialization, is, on the average, man's mental superior.</p> + +<p>This is a sweeping statement to make, but it is made only in the +interests of truth, and it admits of a great deal of plausible +explanation.</p> + +<p>Man's mental training, as has been fully pointed out, consists almost +entirely in pouring facts into a vacuum created by the careful +elimination of original thought. Until recently, women have not been +subjected to this agreeable process. For a very long time they were not +educated at all, and when governesses first came into fashion in better +class families, the idea was rather to endow girls with a few graceful +accomplishments than to cram them with dates and other kinds of +mechanical knowledge.</p> + +<p>This tradition is still kept up to a certain degree in the higher social +circles; but there have also sprung up a large number of girls' +colleges, in which all the bad points of masculine education are +carefully copied. These colleges are frequented by girls of the upper +and middle classes, chiefly the latter, and no doubt they are gradually +working a revolution in feminine character. But heredity—especially +when it is, within a generation or so, the heredity of long ages—is a +very potent factor in the formation of both mind and body, and offers a +steady resistance to innovation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">{70}</a></span> The full effects, therefore, of this +educational revolution in respect to womankind are not yet apparent.</p> + +<p>The net result of this is that the majority of women are still addicted +to thought. Facts have not yet entirely taken the place of ideas in +their minds, except in extreme cases which may be called exceptional, +although it must be confessed that they are becoming every day less +rare. They think, no doubt, for the most part about the commonplace +incidents of their daily life, and possibly they are given too much to +morbid introspection. But anything that serves to make a human being +exercise the function for which his brain was originally intended should +be regarded with thankfulness. It is a thousand times better for the +development of the mind to speculate about the motives of acquaintances, +or to philosophize on the shortcomings of the maid-of-all-work, than to +babble off the dates of the Sovereigns from William the Conqueror, or to +construe Horace's Odes without taking in a syllable of their sense.</p> + +<p>Women have thus formed a habit of reflection about trifles, which the +more gifted amongst them extend to weightier topics. And it is in this +way that they are able to gain an ascendancy over man that is the more +potent because it is unobtrusive. The average woman sees things the +subtleties of which escape man altogether, and she perceives them +because her mind has been trained, by natural development, to +observation.</p> + +<p>The average man, on the other hand, is the most unobservant creature +under the sun. He rarely understands even what is going on under his +nose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span> It is all very well to say that his superior mind is wrapt up in +percentages, or absorbed in grand schemes for the regeneration of +mankind. The plain truth is that he does not possess the faculty of +applying his intelligence to everything within his range of observation. +Evolution intended him to possess it; but education systems, which +harbour very little respect for the laws of Nature, have found ready +means to curb the propensity or to destroy it altogether.</p> + +<p>It is small matter for surprise, therefore, that woman should have +succeeded in subjecting man to an empire as autocratic as it is, to all +outward appearances, unsuspected. Some people maintain that this empire +is gained solely by physical attraction; but this contention is +disproved easily enough. All women do not possess the charm of beauty; +yet there is scarcely a woman of any nationality, or belonging to any +station in life, who does not exercise a more or less powerful influence +over her menkind.</p> + +<p>Husbands are guided by their wives, even in matters of business or +affecting public interests, far more than they are generally ready to +acknowledge. Staying at a seaside hotel some time ago, I made the +acquaintance of a hard-headed Lancashire merchant who had amassed a +comfortable independence. In an outburst of confidence he told me one +day that he had never taken a single important step in the conduct of +his business without consulting his wife, and he also acknowledged that +he had never had to regret asking her advice.</p> + +<p>The moral of this story is the more significant when it is recollected +that in such a case the wife has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span> not had the same opportunities as her +husband of forming a correct judgment. The latter has the business +details at his finger-ends; he is acquainted with the person or persons +with whom the dealings are taking place; and he has his experience to +fall back upon. But somehow or other the wife seems to grasp all the +points, and to see more clearly into the motives of the person +concerned. 'Why,' she will exclaim to her husband, 'can't you see that +So-and-so is trying to bamboozle you?' And, the scales falling from the +deluded husband's eyes, he suddenly makes the discovery that his wife +thinks where his own powers of reflection are contented to remain +dormant.</p> + +<p>The fact is, that the habit of thinking cannot be acquired through +exercise in mental gymnastics. Philosophers, mathematicians, and men of +science are notoriously up in the clouds, and incapable often to a +remarkable degree of managing the affairs of everyday life with common +sense. Yet these are the individuals who have been subjected to the +highest form of what is called mental training. If fact-cramming and +mental gymnastics are the best developers of the human mind, these men +ought to be perfect models of intelligence. But will any candid-minded +person call it the highest form of intellectual development to have a +clear conception of the precession of the equinoxes, or to manufacture +metaphysical conundrums, whilst remaining utterly incapable of applying +common sense to human affairs that demand at least an equal amount of +attention?</p> + +<p>It is clear that this type of mental training does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span> not teach people to +think at all, but has the contrary effect of restricting the +intelligence to an altitude very far beyond the ordinary requirements of +our social existence. Man may have a very broad horizon; but the broader +it becomes, the further he seems to be transported from the capacity to +exercise the normal functions of the brain. To designate this the proper +development of the mind would be manifestly absurd; yet many people seem +contented to regard it as such, and accept the anomaly without giving +its obvious contradictoriness a second thought.</p> + +<p>Of course it is not argued that woman's mental training is, or has been, +all that can be desired. It is, in her case, more the neglect to apply +severe educational methods, than anything else, that has permitted the +negative development of her thinking faculties; and this tends to +demonstrate all the more conclusively that the real use of the brain is +practically destroyed by conventional modes of instruction.</p> + +<p>Women, left to their own devices for countless generations, have +acquired a faculty that all the education systems in the world have +failed to pound into the mind of man. It is their superiority in this +respect that has given them far-reaching empire over the opposite sex. +That this should be generally appreciated is of the utmost importance, +because the modern metamorphosis of woman, if rightly understood, is the +best conceivable object-lesson in the evils brought about by the +educational methods of the present day. It is not that the +academically-trained woman threatens to push man out of his place in the +world, but that she is herself in danger of losing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">{74}</a></span> very weapon that +has given her so large a share of power and influence.</p> + +<p>A great deal of nonsense has been talked and written about the +spectacled Girton girl competing with men in knowledge, at the expense +of forfeiting their admiration and thereby losing her vantage-ground. +Spectacles do not enter into the matter at all. As has already been +pointed out, physical attraction has nothing, or very little, to do with +feminine wire-pulling.</p> + +<p>Women derive their real powers from a gift of trained observation, and +from the subtlety conferred upon them by the capacity to apply their +intelligence to the numerous small matters which go to make up the sum +of human life. Their minds will no longer develop these powers when they +are systematically subjected to a process of education which has +invariably failed to evoke them in the opposite sex. And with the loss +of them, woman is bound also to lose the empire which she has hitherto +exercised over masculine nature.</p> + +<p>From this point of view alone, the education of women on the modern +system is much to be deplored. There is no doubt that women in general +have always exercised their predominant influence for the good of +mankind. Striking exceptions might easily be adduced from history; but, +on the whole, it must be acknowledged that woman has seldom abused her +power. Therefore, anything that is calculated to undermine or destroy +this favourable influence on human affairs cannot be regarded as +otherwise than pernicious.</p> + +<p>The more the idea spreads that girls must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span> given the same educational +equipment as boys, the more rapid will be the degeneration of woman. It +is a well-known fact in the medical profession that weakly boys are +often unable to withstand the strain of school cramming; therefore +girls, with their more delicate organization, will suffer +proportionately in a greater degree. Physical training, of course, +obviates a great deal of this evil. But the same thing is bound to +happen in the case of girls as has already been experienced where boys +are concerned; that is to say, the most promising intellects will be +sacrificed, partly through the ambition of the school authorities, whose +principal anxiety is to see their pupils distinguish themselves in +examinations, and partly owing to the fact that exceptional ability so +often implies a nervous temperament and delicate physique.</p> + +<p>Women, it must be acknowledged, by no means use their faculties of +thinking and observation to the best advantage. The conclusions at which +they arrive are often far too definite, and have been formed in too +great haste. So rapid is this operation of thought that it often becomes +a mere intuition. Yet the remarkable accuracy of a woman's intuitions is +evidence that there underlies them some intellectual process resting on +a more solid basis than conjecture or guesswork.</p> + +<p>It is the crude and untutored stage of development of the thinking +faculty in woman that causes it to work intuitively, instead of by the +slower and sounder processes of logic. To neglect a faculty is by no +means synonymous with developing it. Hence woman's powers of thought and +observation are embryonic rather than matured. The work they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">{76}</a></span> perform is +not a tithe of what would be accomplished by them under the auspices of +judicious encouragement and skilled training. The faculty has neither +been destroyed by over-cramming nor fostered by enlightened treatment. +It has simply been allowed to lie more or less dormant, according to the +natural environment of the individual.</p> + +<p>If man, with his superior brain capacity, were encouraged to cultivate +the habits of observation at present restricted to woman, and to apply +his intelligence to everything, instead of to a few selected objects, +the ratio of the world's progress would be enormously increased. Who +first started the notion that man is being manufactured into a superior +article, and that woman cannot do better than submit herself with all +haste to the same process, I do not know. At any rate, it is a +disastrous doctrine, and the sooner the fallacy of it is perceived the +more chance there will be of saving future generations of women from the +blunder that is handicapping the masculine sex at the present moment.</p> + +<p>It would be a grand thing if educationists could be persuaded to open +their eyes to the fact that women, having been providentially saved from +school instruction for past generations, have been enabled to preserve +mental faculties that no amount of cramming and corporal punishment has +ever succeeded in awakening in man. They would then cease from their +ignorant attempt to deprive woman of her intellectual gift, and possibly +even do something towards securing man a little mental room for the +installation of his own thinking faculty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">YOUTH AND CRIME</span></h2> + + +<p>We now come to the consideration of an aspect of the educational problem +that involves questions of great difficulty and importance. The +discussion has hitherto been limited to the lesser evils attributable to +the forcing upon the masses of the people a useless and unsuitable kind +of education. But there are far graver possibilities than the mere +unfitting of large numbers of individuals for the occupations their +natural propensities intended them to pursue.</p> + +<p>People are, as has been pointed out, driven by the stupidity of the +teaching system into all kinds of uncongenial employment. The suffering +and waste caused by this constant production of the unfit are +incalculable. It is scarcely to be wondered at that some persons have +formed the ingenious theory that this world is hell itself, and that we +are now actually undergoing our punishment in purgatory. Certainly there +is some ground for the supposition in the fact that the lives of so many +of us seem to have been ordered in direct opposition to our individual +tastes and wishes.</p> + +<p>This is bad enough. The question we have to face now is whether we have +not to thank education<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">{78}</a></span> systems for something a great deal worse. Mere +unhappiness is not necessarily soul-destroying. But there is only too +good reason to suppose that the evil effects of the mock education +provided by the State do not stop at making its victims unhappy, but +even go so far as to plunge a certain proportion of them into actual +crime.</p> + +<p>At the outset it must be acknowledged that the allegation is very +difficult to prove. No satisfactory evidence on the point is derivable +from published statistics. It is quite possible to determine by means of +the latter how many young persons between the ages of twelve and +twenty-one have been convicted of indictable offences during the year. +But everybody who is acquainted with criminology, or who is conversant +with the compilation of statistical information, must be well aware of +the futility of depending upon the apparently clear testimony of +official figures.</p> + +<p>It would be extremely useful to find out whether juvenile offenders have +increased or decreased since the institution of compulsory education. +Statistics relating to this subject are procurable, but it is impossible +to place any reliance upon them.</p> + +<p>In the first place, there is nothing to show the cause of any such +increase or decrease in the offences committed by young persons. It may +be due to a variety of circumstances, none of which can be accurately +determined. For instance, it is a well-known fact that youthful +offenders have of late years been treated by magistrates with +ever-increasing leniency. Consequently, fewer convictions take place +now, in regard to this class of offence, than was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span> case some years +ago. The number of the convictions is, therefore, no guide at all as to +the increasing or diminishing proportion of youthful criminals.</p> + +<p>Then there is the increased vigilance of the police, which leads to the +more frequent detection of crime; whilst, as a set-off against this, +there is the fact that education teaches the criminal, by assisting him +to the reading of police-court reports and sensational storyettes, to be +more wary.</p> + +<p>Besides these, there is the important consideration that by far the +larger number of young persons guilty of offences of various kinds are +not prosecuted at all. This is due to two causes: firstly, to the fact +that in the majority of cases they are not found out; and secondly, that +many people are reluctant to bring youthful offenders within the meshes +of the criminal law, as a conviction, whether or not it be followed by +punishment, generally spells ruin to the person who has been found +guilty.</p> + +<p>There may be, and there probably are, many other and even more +substantial reasons for discrediting statistics that are commonplaces to +experts in crime. But those that have been cited, and which are at once +suggested by common sense, fully suffice to show the impossibility of +arriving at satisfactory conclusions on the basis of statistical tables +published by the authorities.</p> + +<p>The Blue-book containing the latest judicial returns attempts to deal +with this question of the increase or decrease of juvenile crime; +figures being only available, however, from the year 1893. 'To answer +this question,' it is stated, 'it is necessary to ascertain the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span> +proportion which youthful offenders bear to the total number of +convicted persons. This is given in the following table, where it will +be seen that the proportion of offenders under the age of twenty-one +remains almost constant:</p> + +<p class='center'>'PROPORTION OF YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS CONVICTED OF INDICTABLE OFFENCES TO +TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS CONVICTED.</p> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr class="bt bb"><td align="center" class="bt bb"> Age.</td><td align="center" class="bt bb bl"> 1893.</td><td align="center" class="bt bb bl"> 1894.</td><td align="center" class="bt bb bl"> 1895.</td><td align="center" class="bt bb bl"> 1896.</td><td align="center" class="bt bb bl"> 1897.</td><td align="center" class="bt bb bl"> 1898.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="center" class="bl">Per cent.</td><td align="center" class="bl">Per cent.</td><td align="center" class="bl">Per cent.</td><td align="center" class="bl">Per cent.</td><td align="center" class="bl">Per cent.</td><td align="center" class="bl">Per cent.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Under 12</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 4.6</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 4.9</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 4.6</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 5.6</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 5.6</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 5.6</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">12 and under 16</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 15.0</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 15.2</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 13.4</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 14.5</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 14.0</td><td align="center" class="bl"> 14.5</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">16 and under 21</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 21.2</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 22.0</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 21.8</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 19.7</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 19.5</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 20.2</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" class="bb">Total under 21</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 40.8</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 42.1</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 39.8</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 39.8</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 39.1</td><td align="center" class="bl bb"> 40.3</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>'The general result is that the number of youthful offenders has +diminished with the general diminution of crime, but that they still +bear almost the same ratio as before to the total of criminals.'</p> + +<p>All this is, as has been pointed out, absolutely misleading. The number +of persons convicted has nothing whatever to do with the increase or +decrease of crime; and the proportion of youthful offenders to the total +number of persons convicted is only calculated, in view of the great +amount of clemency shown to young people both by magistrates and by the +public, to give one a wholly false impression as to the prevalence of +juvenile crime.</p> + +<p>It would be easy to take the criminal statistics of foreign countries, +and to prove from them that the education of the masses there has +brought about an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span> overwhelming increase in the proportion of crimes and +offences committed by young persons under the age of twenty-one.</p> + +<p>In Germany, Austria, France, Russia, Italy, Holland, and the United +States juvenile crime has, according to statistical information, largely +increased during the last quarter of a century. But, without making an +exhaustive inquiry into the alterations that may have taken place in the +law, the relative activity of the police, and a dozen other +contingencies, it would not be honest to attempt to draw definite +conclusions from these figures.</p> + +<p>One has, after all, in these matters to fall back upon logic and common +sense. There is the solid fact that youthful criminals abound in spite +of education systems, and although there is a considerable leakage in +respect to school-attendance, it does not follow that juvenile offenders +are drawn from this truant class to a disproportionate extent. It must +be remembered, on the contrary, that a great amount of non-attendance at +school is due to the employment of children—especially in rural +districts, where the members of School Boards are often the very people +who extract most profit from child labour.</p> + +<p>A prison chaplain of great experience, the Rev. J. W. Horsley, wrote, in +his interesting work on 'Prisons and Prisoners': 'While covetousness is +a factor of crime, the tools education places in the hands make crimes +of greed more possible, and possible at an earlier age than in past +generations. This week I got the Church of England Waifs and Strays +Society to take under its care a child of ten,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">{82}</a></span> who had written, filled +up, and cashed, a postal order that it might buy more lollipops. +Increased knowledge, especially when not adequately accompanied by moral +and religious education, will create new tastes, desires, and ambitions, +that make for evil as well as for good. Let instruction abound, let +education in its fullest sense more abound, but let us be aware of the +increased power for evil as well as for good that they produce, and at +any rate let us not imagine that education and crime cannot co-exist. +Crime is varied, not abolished, not even most effectually decreased, by +the sharpening of wits.'</p> + +<p>Speaking of intemperance in relation to crime, he states that: +'Brain-workers provide the most hopeless cases of dipsomania. Increased +brain-power—more brain-work; more brain-exhaustion—more nervous desire +for a stimulant, more rapid succumbing to the alcoholic habit—these are +the stages that can be noted everywhere among those who have had more +"schooling" than their fathers. Australia consumes more alcohol per head +than any nation. In Australia primary education is more universal than +in England, and yet there criminals have increased out of all proportion +to the population. Of much crime, of many forms of crime, it is +irrefragably true that crime is condensed alcohol, and it is certainly +not true that the absolutely or comparatively illiterate alone comprise +those who swell these categories.'</p> + +<p>I have taken pains to ascertain the opinions of several of the chaplains +attached to the great convict prisons, and they are practically +unanimous in condemning the present system of education.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span></p> + +<p>'It is liable,' writes one of these experienced clergymen, 'to foster +conceit, discontent, a disinclination to submit to discipline and +authority, and a dangerous phase of ambition, which are fruitful sources +of that kind of crime which is in these days most prevalent.... This +superficial education causes, I think, self-deceit as well as +self-conceit, and makes young people imagine that because, in addition +to what they have learnt, they can present a good outward appearance, +they are qualified to fill any kind of appointment with success.</p> + +<p>'I think, also,' he goes on to say, 'that it leads them in their desire +to rise in the social scale to attempt by dishonest means to live at a +higher rate than is justifiable, to gamble and speculate, in order to +keep up a false position. I have come across those who have fallen where +this has confessedly been the case, and who have lamented that such +wrong ideas had been put into their heads. Young people now look upon +many honourable and useful employments as beneath them, and there is a +general rush for those which seem to offer a better social position.'</p> + +<p>The conventional belief in the efficacy of cramming boys with moral +platitudes and all kinds of commonplace facts and theoretical knowledge +is so ingrained that there is a natural reluctance to ascribe any evil +effects to the process of education. I am contented, however, to let the +facts speak for themselves. It cannot well be disputed that unsuitable +education, or sham education, or whatever one may like to call it, is +the direct cause of widespread dissatisfaction amongst the very classes +from which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span> majority of criminals are recruited. Whilst vast numbers +of people are constantly being unfitted for the commonest occupations of +life, there must result an overcrowding of the callings which are +considered suitable to the dignity of those who have eaten the unripe +fruit of the elementary tree of knowledge.</p> + +<p>It is self-evident that the unsuitably educated have much greater +incentive to wrong-doing than the merely illiterate, and it is also a +corroborative fact that by far the greater proportion of criminals have +been taught at least to read and write. Given two boys, one of whom had +acquired a smattering of facts at school and had learnt the Catechism +very perfectly by rote, whilst the other had merely been encouraged to +apply a little common sense to manual labour, who would have any +hesitation in pointing out the former as the more likely to fall into +evil ways?</p> + +<p>Therein lies the supreme foolishness of modern methods of instruction. +All the moral aphorisms in the world will not help a boy to be honest if +he is at the same time unfitted for his station in life. People do not +need moral instruction; they acquire all their morality in the school of +life. It is impossible to teach boys and girls theoretically to be +virtuous. All that can be done is to turn them into first-class +hypocrites, ready to quote texts and to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine +Articles, whilst they are busy breaking the Ten Commandments every day +of the week.</p> + +<p>A surprising amount of virtue would come into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span> the world of its own +accord if a little more pains were taken to preserve for each individual +the environment to which he is adapted by nature. This life has become +such a mockery that people talk of heaven as a state in which every +person will be free to do the things he likes best—as if that blissful +condition were utterly unattainable here.</p> + +<p>Whilst such anomalies exist as those which curse the existence of the +majority upon this earth, criminals will continue to be produced. And if +we concede that these anomalies are directly or indirectly brought about +by false and irrational methods of educating the youth of the country, +we must also allow that education helps to manufacture criminals and to +encourage crime.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">MENTAL BREAKDOWN</span></h2> + + +<p>It was frankly stated in the last chapter that there is no concrete +evidence of a reliable nature as to the immoral effects of our education +system. The inquirer has to depend rather upon the logic of +philosophical speculation than upon the testimony of our available +statistics, common sense being generally a far more truthful witness +than figures that can be manipulated to mean almost anything.</p> + +<p>But when we come to inquire into the physical evils that are produced by +cramming and injudiciously-applied instruction, it must be acknowledged +that the evidence as to their existence rests upon a much more solid +foundation. Clever brain specialists, who have made a lifelong study of +mental diseases and the causes of mental breakdown, are in a position to +state very definitely, from actual experience, whether or not the +cramming system of modern education is productive of physical ill on a +large scale.</p> + +<p>We all of us know, probably, of some isolated instances here and there +where the severe strain of cramming for a competitive examination has +resulted in loss of health and physical breakdown. Some are even aware +of cases in which the unhappy victim of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span> overwork has lost his reason +altogether, and has been compelled to be placed under restraint. But it +is only the physician who has made a special study of mental diseases +that is in a position to form wide and accurate generalizations on the +subject.</p> + +<p>In approaching this question, therefore, I have realized the importance +of obtaining the opinions of experts who are alone qualified to express +a well-balanced judgment upon a matter demanding knowledge and +opportunities of observation of a very special nature. Accordingly, I +have consulted some of the greatest brain specialists in this country, +and the brief remarks that I am enabled to make on the subject of +educational cramming and mental breakdown are chiefly based upon the +valuable hints for which I am indebted to them.</p> + +<p>To take the case of healthy children first, it is satisfactory to learn +upon high authority that they do not suffer much physical harm from the +effects of overwork. What happens in their case is that the vigorous and +healthy brain offers a sound resistance to the stuffing process, and +speedily forgets what has been forced into it. From an educational point +of view this is, of course, very disastrous; but as far as health +considerations are concerned it affords a certain amount of consolation.</p> + +<p>This is to say, one must bear in mind, that modern methods of education +are only salutary as long as they fail altogether to affect the +intelligence. The moment they prove themselves to be efficacious they +become an immediate source of danger.</p> + +<p>It follows from this fact that stupid children are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">{88}</a></span> as well protected +against the evil effects of the education system as the healthy +children. In fact, to a large extent the stupid children are the healthy +ones by reason of their stupidity. It is, however, a great mistake to +suppose that a stupid child necessarily implies one that is in any sense +deficient mentally. The dull schoolboy often proves in after life to be +the brilliant man. All that his dulness need be taken to signify is that +his mind is not receptive to the subjects which are being forced upon +it. Linnæus was very stupid at Latin until an enlightened physician, who +was aware of his passion for botanical study, suggested his reading +Plinius; and although he may not have imbibed very accurate information +about natural history from that philosopher, he succeeded in making +immediate progress in the Latin language.</p> + +<p>There should be, under a rational system of education, no such thing as +a stupid child. What is, after all, stupidity or dulness in a schoolboy? +It simply means that the boy's faculties are undeveloped, and that no +amount of fact-cramming has succeeded in developing them. The whole +mischief lies, of course, in the fact that the school is not trying to +develop the boy's own faculties at all, but merely to force him to adapt +himself to its own curriculum and conventionality.</p> + +<p>The danger to the brain of the healthy or stupid child is not +over-development but under-development. It is not they who suffer in the +worst sense from the evil effects of over-education, but the gifted +children, as they are called, or those whose quick, nervous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span> intellects +are most susceptible to the process of receiving any kind of +instruction.</p> + +<p>It is the nervous boy or girl who generally makes the most promising +pupil. A natural inclination to study leads children of this type to +prefer the schoolroom to the playground. The boy who works hard to get +to the top of his class, or to pass an examination, or to obtain a +scholarship, is the one least given to games, and, in consequence, the +weakest physically.</p> + +<p>These are the very children whom the teacher is most tempted to +encourage to do more work than is good for them. The process of their +mental development is so rapid that it needs no stimulation from +outside. But that is not, unfortunately, the concern of the school +authorities. The anxiety to produce scholars who will distinguish +themselves in public examinations, and thereby advertise the school, +invariably leads the schoolmaster to cram and stuff the brains of the +brightest and most forward boys.</p> + +<p>There is special danger in over-working boys or girls of this type, +because the brain is not strong enough to withstand the pressure. The +result is never good, and in extreme cases it is as bad as it could +possibly be. It follows, in fact, as a matter of course, that the finest +and most sensitive intellects are the first to succumb to the pernicious +effects of over-cramming the brain. There is a strain that can only be +endured by second-rate minds, and it is not, therefore, the +intellectually fittest who are encouraged to survive under the present +system.</p> + +<p>What has been stated above refers rather to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span> higher class of schools +and colleges, which prepare boys for examinations and academic +distinctions of various kinds, than to the elementary schools to which +the children of the poor are commandeered. In the latter establishments +a special barbarity takes place which has been so widely discussed in +Parliament and in the newspapers that I will do no more here than allude +to it in passing.</p> + +<p>I refer to the forcing of instruction upon under-fed school-children.</p> + +<p>Apart from the gross inhumanity of the proceeding, there is the +indisputable fact that the compulsory teaching of children whose bodies +have not been properly nourished tends to weaken the intellect. If these +children were subjected to a process of cramming such as is usual in the +higher schools, their minds would undoubtedly break down altogether. As +it is, the comparatively mild method of the elementary school does not +effect anything worse in such cases than the prevention of the +development of the mind, which is one degree better than complete +breakdown or insanity.</p> + +<p>'The School Board system of cramming with smatterings,' wrote one of the +greatest mental specialists in the world in reply to my inquiries, +'instead of teaching their victims to think—even if only by teaching +one subject well—is perhaps responsible for some positive mental +breakdown; but probably the main harm of it is that it stifles and +strangles proper mental development.' 'Undeveloped mentality,' he says +in conclusion, 'is perhaps the principal fault of our educational system +(so-called).'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span></p> + +<p>Another distinguished physician writes to me from a lunatic asylum:</p> + +<p>'We have had a few cases who have broken down, the results of working +for scholarships; also we have had one or two cases of ladies who have +broken down working for higher examinations. Dr. —— and myself both +feel certain that there is a good deal to be said against the increased +pressure put upon young adolescents at schools. From my own experience I +know that boys who were considered especially clever, and were high up +in forms in the public school I was at, have most of them now dropped +back, and are very mediocre. On the other hand, many who matured slowly +have continued to advance. This is only an observation, and has many +exceptions; but it is an observation that, as time passes, is more fully +confirmed.'</p> + +<p>It is not necessary to add anything to these valuable expressions of +opinion, proceeding from eminent men of wide experience, who are far +more capable judges than the layman who has no scientific knowledge and +a necessarily limited range of observation.</p> + +<p>Facts speak very eloquently for themselves. If brain specialists are +continually coming across cases of mental breakdown resulting from +cramming or over-education, it is quite clear that a system which is +productive of such evils must be altogether defective in principle and +wanting in common sense.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">EVIDENCE OF HISTORY</span></h2> + + +<p>After an exhaustive inquiry into the multifarious evils which must be +laid at the door of education, it is refreshing to turn to history for +illustrious examples of men who not only did not owe their greatness to +academic training, but who actually owed it to what would nowadays be +designated a neglected education.</p> + +<p>The chronicles of the past teem with instances of youths who have +developed into brilliant men, in spite of the fact that they had either +had no schooling at all, or had been considered the dunces of their +class. It would, in fact, be far more difficult to supply illustrations +of great men who have succeeded on account of their academic +distinction, than to give examples of those who failed to distinguish +themselves at school, but who nevertheless became famous afterwards as +men of unusual talent.</p> + +<p>When Napoleon Bonaparte, at the age of fifteen, left the military +college of Brienne, where he had been a pupil for five years and a half, +the inspector of military schools gave him the following certificate:</p> + +<p>'M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born August 15, 1769; height 4 feet 10 +inches 10 lines; is in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span> fourth class; has a good constitution, +excellent health, character obedient, upright, grateful, conduct very +regular; has always been distinguished by his application to +mathematics. He knows history and geography very passably. He is not +well up in ornamental studies or in Latin, in which he is only in the +fourth class. He will be an excellent sailor. He deserves to be passed +on to the military school of Paris.'</p> + +<p>This was an optimistic description of the youthful Napoleon's +accomplishments, for he was, as a matter of fact, so backward in Latin +that his removal to Paris was opposed by the sub-principal of the +college. According to the testimony of his schoolfellow and biographer, +M. de Bourrienne, he exhibited backwardness in every branch of education +except mathematics, for which he showed a distinct natural bent.</p> + +<p>The only professor at Brienne who took any notice of Napoleon was the +mathematical master. The others thought him stupid because he had no +taste for the study of languages, literature, and the various subjects +that formed the curriculum of the establishment; and as there seemed no +chance of his becoming a scholar, they took no interest in him.</p> + +<p>'His superior intelligence was, however, sufficiently perceptible,' +writes M. de Bourrienne, 'even through the reserve under which it was +veiled. If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment +was confided had understood the organization of his mind, if they had +engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any +incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">{94}</a></span> +etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences +with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a +career more brilliant, it is true, but less useful to mankind. +Unfortunately, the monks did not perceive this, and were too poor to pay +for good masters.... The often-repeated assertion of Bonaparte having +received a <i>careful education</i> at Brienne is therefore untrue.'</p> + +<p>Napoleon's military bent showed itself whilst he was at the College of +Brienne. Heavy snow fell during one winter, and prevented him from +taking the solitary walks that were his chief recreation. He therefore +fell back upon the expedient of getting his school companions to dig +trenches and build snow fortifications. 'This being done,' he said, 'we +may divide ourselves into sections, form a siege, and I will undertake +to direct the attacks.' In this way he organized a sham war that was +carried on with great success for a fortnight.</p> + +<p>This brief sketch of Napoleon Bonaparte's schooldays has been given in +order to show that the development of his genius owed nothing to +academic training. Without being actually a dunce, he was backward in +all the subjects except the one in which he took a vivid interest; and, +doubtless, had he cared as little for mathematics as for Latin, he would +have left Brienne with a reputation for profound stupidity.</p> + +<p>The school career of his great opponent, Wellington, was even less +distinguished. Tradition has handed down to posterity no further details +regarding his Eton days beyond the record of a fight with Sydney Smith's +elder brother 'Bobus.' Alluding to him as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span> a dull boy, Mr. Smiles +states, in a footnote, in his book on 'Self-Help': 'A writer in the +<i>Edinburgh Review</i> (July, 1859) observes that "the Duke's talents seem +never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field +for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long +described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only 'food +for powder.' He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the +French Military College of Angiers." It is not improbable that a +competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded him from the +army.'</p> + +<p>Lord Clive was a perfectly hopeless youth from the schoolmaster's point +of view. He loathed work, and was always up to some prank or other. In +the vain hope of inducing him to learn something, he was sent to four +schools in succession; but, with a single exception, every master under +whom he was placed declared him to be an incorrigible idler. The +exception was Dr. Eaton of Lostock, who predicted a great career for +Clive, provided an opportunity were afforded him for the exercise of his +talents.</p> + +<p>At Market Drayton he amused himself by organizing a band of idle scamps, +who went about threatening to smash the windows of tradespeople unless +they paid a fine of apples or pence; and on one occasion he alarmed the +inhabitants of the town by climbing a church steeple and seating himself +upon a stone spout near the top.</p> + +<p>A man of the same stamp who received the scantiest education was George +Washington. He is described as having been given a common-school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span> +education, with a little mathematical training, but no instruction +whatever in ancient or modern languages.</p> + +<p>Christopher Columbus, another adventurous spirit, owed very little to +his schooling. 'He soon evinced a strong passion for geographical +knowledge,' writes Washington Irving in his interesting Life of the +explorer, 'and an irresistible inclination for the sea.... His father, +seeing the bent of his mind, endeavoured to give him an education +suitable for maritime life. He sent him, therefore, to the university of +Pavia, where he was instructed in geometry, geography, astronomy and +navigation.... He remained but a short time at Pavia, barely sufficient +to give him the rudiments of the necessary sciences; the thorough +acquaintance with them which he displayed in after-life must have been +the result of diligent self-schooling, and of casual hours of study +amidst the cares and vicissitudes of a rugged and wandering life.'</p> + +<p>No better instance of the advantage of natural development and +self-culture could be afforded than by the career of Dr. Livingstone. +Working in a cotton factory as a boy of ten, he studied scientific works +and books of travel, besides the classics, not only at night, but during +the hours of labour.</p> + +<p>'Looking back now at that life of toil,' he wrote afterwards, 'I cannot +but feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early +education; and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again +in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span></p> + +<p>Dr. Adam Clarke, the celebrated divine, scholar, and philanthropist, was +a regular dunce in his early youth. It was only with difficulty, and an +undue proportion of whacking, that the elements of the alphabet were +driven into his head by an impatient teacher—a mode of instruction that +probably caused him to remark, in after life, that 'many children, not +naturally dull, have become so under the influence of the schoolmaster.'</p> + +<p>It is related of Dr. Clarke that when he reached the middle of 'As in +præsenti,' in Lilly's Latin Grammar, he came to a dead stop and could +get no further. His fellow-pupils, however, jeered him to such an extent +that he determined to go on and conquer the difficulty. And this +resolution seems to have helped him considerably, as, instead of the +grammar being forced into him, he began to study and think for himself.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he always found great difficulty in learning anything at +school, but was passionately devoted to reading imaginative books and +stories of adventure, such as 'Jack the Giant-killer,' 'Arabian Nights,' +'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Sir Francis Drake,' and a host of similar +works. To these, in fact, and not to his painfully acquired school +education, he was wont to attribute the formation of his literary taste.</p> + +<p>Disraeli's education was by no means thorough. There is no record of his +having distinguished himself academically in the slightest degree. It is +related of him, on the contrary, that he was such a duffer at classics +as to be incapable of grasping the rule<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span> that 'ut' should be followed by +the subjunctive mood. The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, +given by one of his school-fellows, is quoted by Sir William Fraser:</p> + +<p>'I cannot say that Benjamin Disraeli at this period of his life +exhibited any unusual zeal for classical studies; and I doubt whether +his attainments in this direction, when he left the school for Mr. +Cogan's at Walthamstow, reached higher than the usual grind in Livy and +Cæsar. But I well remember that he was the compiler and editor of a +school newspaper, which made its appearance on Saturdays, when the +gingerbread-seller was also to be seen, and that the right of perusal +was estimated at the cost of a sheet of gingerbread, the money value of +which was in those days the third of a penny.'</p> + +<p>Turning to literary men, we find an imposing array of dunces. I have not +had time to examine into the school experiences of more than a limited +number of great names. If the reader is anxious to pursue the +investigation further, he will doubtless find that there is scarcely a +famous man of letters who made his mark at school or university.</p> + +<p>The first person to teach Oliver Goldsmith his letters was a woman, who +afterwards became village schoolmistress, named Elizabeth Delap. She did +not form a very flattering opinion of her young pupil. 'Never was so +dull a boy,' she was wont to declare; 'he seemed impenetrably stupid.' +From this kind but undiscriminating teacher Oliver gravitated to the +village school, where he learnt nothing. Thence he was sent to Elphin; +and of this period of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span> school life Dr. Strean says: 'He was +considered by his contemporaries and school-fellows, with whom I have +often conversed on the subject, as a stupid heavy blockhead, little +better than a fool, whom every one made fun of.'</p> + +<p>Goldsmith has himself, in his 'Inquiry into the Present State of Polite +Learning,' recorded some very striking impressions as to the value of +academic success. 'A lad whose passions are not strong enough in youth,' +he writes, 'to mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, +and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or five years' +perseverance, probably obtains every advantage and honour his college +can bestow. I forget whether the simile has been used before, but I +would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the +tranquillity of dispassionate prudence to liquors that never ferment, +and consequently continue always muddy. Passions may raise a commotion +in the youthful breast, but they disturb only to refine it. However this +be, mean talents are often rewarded in colleges with an easy +subsistence.'</p> + +<p>Another 'impenetrable dunce,' according to the opinion of his tutor, an +eminent Dublin scholar, was Richard Sheridan. He was afterwards sent to +Harrow, where he earned for himself a great reputation for idleness. Dr. +Parr, one of the under-masters, wrote to Sheridan's biographer the +following expression of opinion:</p> + +<p>'There was little in his boyhood worth communication. He was inferior to +many of his schoolfellows in the ordinary business of a school, and I do +not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span> remember any one instance in which he distinguished himself by +Latin or English composition, in prose or verse.... He was at the +uppermost part of the fifth form, but he never reached the sixth, and, +if I mistake not, he had no opportunity of attending the most difficult +and the most honourable of school business, when the Greek plays were +taught—and it was the custom at Harrow to teach these at least every +year. He went through his lessons in Horace and Virgil and Homer well +enough for a time. But, in the absence of the upper master, Dr. Sumner, +it once fell in my way to instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling +up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly in construing, but +unusually defective in his Greek grammar.... I ought to have told you +that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his +exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency.'</p> + +<p>The latter statement speaks volumes for a method of teaching which +failed to evoke, even in such a master of English literature as Sheridan +eventually proved himself to be, a proper development of his greatest +talent. No doubt the exercises in which so little proficiency was shown +were compulsorily executed against the grain, being of such a pedantic +character that no sane schoolboy could possibly be found to evince the +smallest interest in them.</p> + +<p>Dean Swift and Sir Walter Scott were both dull boys. The former says of +himself that he was 'stopped of his degree for dulness and +insufficiency.' Scott, in his autobiographical sketch, does not make +himself out to have been the dunce that he really<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span> was supposed to be at +school. If not bright at his lessons, however, he was certainly clever +in other ways and capable of thinking for himself. An excellent +illustration of this is contained in the story that though Scott, as a +boy, used invariably to go to sleep in church in the course of the +sermon, yet, when questioned about the latter afterwards, he was +generally able to sketch out most of the points dwelt upon by the +preacher—the explanation being, of course, that, given the text, he was +able to follow the probable train of thought inspired by its wording. +Summing up Scott's attainments, a biographer gives expression to the +opinion that he was 'self-educated in every branch of knowledge he ever +turned to account in the works of his genius.'</p> + +<p>Neither Burns nor Carlyle was a scholar. The former received a grounding +in grammar, reading, and writing. He acquired a little French, but +learnt no Latin at all. Whatever he knew he owed to the fact that he +exercised his own taste for knowledge by choosing his own books and +devouring only what appealed to his mind. Carlyle, like many another +famous man of letters, had little Latin and less Greek. 'In the +classical field,' he wrote, 'I am truly as nothing.' For mathematics he +showed a certain amount of inclination, but even in that field did not +succeed in carrying off any prizes. His own opinion of a conventional +education is very tersely rendered by his exclamation: 'Academia! High +School instructors of youth! Oh, ye unspeakable!'</p> + +<p>The poet Wordsworth was educated at the grammar school at Hawkshead. He +always declared that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">{102}</a></span> great merit of the school was the liberty +allowed to the scholars. No attempt was made to cram or to produce model +pupils. Within limits they appear, in fact, to have been allowed to read +precisely what they pleased. In this way Wordsworth received in every +sense of the term a liberal education; and when he went to Cambridge, +'he enjoyed even more thoroughly than at Hawkshead whatever advantages +might be derived from the neglect of his teachers.'</p> + +<p>The poet had a great contempt for academical training, and refused to go +through the usual Cambridge course. He finally graduated as B.A. without +honours, afterwards recording his indifference to academic distinction +in the well-known lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With loyal students faithful to their books,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And honest dunces—of important days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Examinations, when the man was weighed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in a balance! Of excessive hopes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tremblings withal and commendable fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let others that know more speak as they know.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such glory was but little sought by me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And little won.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>More forcibly expressed was Rousseau's derision of ordinary educational +methods. Writing in his 'Confessions' about the school days of his +cousin and himself, he says: 'We were sent together to Bossey, to board +with the Protestant minister Lambercier, in order to learn, together +with Latin, all the sorry trash which is included under the name of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span> +education.... M. Lambercier was a very intelligent person who, without +neglecting our education, never imposed excessive tasks upon us. The +fact that, in spite of my dislike to restraint, I have never recalled my +hours of study with any feeling of disgust, and also that, even if I did +not learn much from him, I learnt without difficulty what I did learn, +and never forgot it, is sufficient proof that his system of instruction +was a good one.'</p> + +<p>As far as the history of science is concerned, there is a long array of +self-cultured men to whom most of the discoveries that have been made +are due. In no other occupation is the faculty of thinking originally +and independently more essential than in the pursuit of scientific +knowledge, and it is significant that amongst famous scientists more +instances are to be found of men who owe nothing to school instruction +or academic training than in almost any other walk of life.</p> + +<p>In this connection mention has already been made of the famous botanist +Linnæus. The whole of his school life was one unremitting protest +against the usual educational methods of endeavouring to force the mind +away from its natural bent. Linnæus detested metaphysics, Latin, Greek, +and every subject except physics and mathematics, in which he usually +outstripped his fellow-pupils. But his nose was kept to the grindstone +until the authorities informed his father that he was not fit for a +learned education, and recommended his being given some manual +employment. Thus were twelve precious years of the life of one of the +most gifted men of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span> science, save for what he accomplished out of school +hours, wasted to no purpose. It is not to be wondered at that he spoke +of one of his masters as 'a passionate and morose man, better calculated +for extinguishing a youth's talents than for improving them.'</p> + +<p>One of the greatest anatomists that ever lived, John Hunter, who +numbered Dr. Jenner amongst his pupils, was scarcely educated at all for +the first twenty years of his life. Mr. Smiles states that 'it was with +difficulty that he acquired the arts of reading and writing.' Originally +a carpenter, he became assistant to his brother, who was established in +London as a surgeon. He acquired all his knowledge of anatomy in the +dissecting-room, and owed everything he had learnt to his own hard work +and habit of thinking things out for himself.</p> + +<p>'The brilliant Sir Humphry Davy,' says Mr. Smiles, 'was no cleverer than +other boys. His teacher, Dr. Cardew, once said of him, "While he was +with me I could not discern the faculties by which he was so much +distinguished." Indeed, Davy himself in after life considered it +fortunate that he had been left to "enjoy so much idleness" at school.'</p> + +<p>Newton was always at the bottom of his class, until he suddenly took it +into his head to give a boy, whom he had already thrashed in another +sense, an intellectual beating. 'It is very probable,' writes Sir David +Brewster in his biography, 'that Newton's idleness arose from the +occupation of his mind with subjects in which he felt a deeper +interest.' Nobody could have penned a more incisive indictment against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span> +the imbecility of an education system that forces all boys, irrespective +of their wishes or talents, into a fixed groove. It was Newton who, in +answer to an inquiry as to how the principle of gravity was discovered, +replied: 'By always thinking of it.'</p> + +<p>When Watt, as a boy, was engaged in investigating the condensation of +steam, his aunt, who was sitting with him at the tea-table, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>'James, I never saw such an idle boy! Take a book or employ yourself +usefully. For the last half hour you have not spoken a word, but taken +off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and +now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, +and counting the drops of water.'</p> + +<p>In this sympathetic way children are usually encouraged to think by +their elders. Watt's faculties were developed entirely at home. He was +sent to a public elementary school in Scotland; but, fortunately for +science, he was so delicate that he was nearly always absent through +indisposition. A visitor, who found the boy drawing lines and circles on +the hearth with a piece of coloured chalk, once remonstrated with Mr. +James Watt, senior, for allowing his son to waste his time at home. Watt +had the good fortune, however, to possess an intelligent father, who +encouraged the boy as far as it lay in his power.</p> + +<p>Left to his own devices, Watt not only contrived to make himself the +foremost engineer of his time, but he also developed his talents in many +other directions. Sir Walter Scott says of him that 'his talents and +fancy overflowed on every subject.' And M. Arago,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span> the French scientist, +in his memoir of Watt, expresses the view that the latter, in spite of +his excellent memory, 'might, nevertheless, not have peculiarly +distinguished himself among the youthful prodigies of ordinary schools. +He could never have learned his lessons like a parrot, for he +experienced a necessity of carefully elaborating the intellectual +elements presented to his attention, and Nature had peculiarly endowed +him with the faculty of meditation.'</p> + +<p>This is only a roundabout way of saying that the conventional process of +cramming would have destroyed the fine intellectual faculties possessed +by Watt. But if in his case, why not in that of another? That is the +strange thing about the light shed upon educational problems by cases +like that of Watt, Newton, and other men of commanding genius. People +only perceive in it a half-truth. They think that it is only in these +exceptional instances that the mind is incapable of being developed by +ordinary rough-and-ready methods.</p> + +<p>Upon what grounds is such an absurd deduction founded? It is true that +individuals differ widely as to the capabilities of their mental +machinery; but it does not follow that the intellectual fibre of one +person is more delicate than that of another.</p> + +<p>The difference is not mental, but physical. It is because a boy is +healthy, and not because his intellectual fibre is coarse, that he is +better able to withstand the strain of an educational training than a +weaker and more nervous boy.</p> + +<p>Until the discovery is made that all minds are sensitive, when they have +been actually reached,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span> people will go on ignorantly destroying the +finer faculties under the impression that genius or talent is a very +rare thing, and can always shift for itself.</p> + +<p>Yet, as I have attempted to show, the evidence of history points +conclusively to the fact that the contrary is the case.</p> + +<p>Is it really supposed that the great names that have been handed down to +posterity represent all the genius to which the world has given birth?</p> + +<p>The idea is preposterous.</p> + +<p>For every man of genius or talent who has been permitted to survive, +education systems have killed a hundred.</p> + +<p>If it had not been for Dr. Rothmann, there would probably have been no +Linnæus to revolutionize the system of botanical classification. Had +tyrannical parents and schoolmasters compelled Watt and Newton to give +up mechanics and scientific study for a thorough cramming in Latin +grammar and Greek roots, we might to-day be without a steam-engine or a +theory of the law of gravitation. Even the genius of Napoleon and +Wellington might easily have been crushed under the auspices of a modern +competitive examination.</p> + +<p>Would stupid Oliver Goldsmith have written his immortal 'Vicar of +Wakefield' and 'She Stoops to Conquer,' or would idle Sheridan have +penned the exquisite comedies that have not to this day been approached +by any subsequent writer, if their idleness and stupidity had been +submitted to the test of an enforced academic training for classical or +mathematical honours?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span></p> + +<p>Surely the evidence of history points to only one conclusion—namely, +that all the genius in the world cannot survive the hopeless imbecility +of educational methods, except by successfully dodging them through +stupidity and idleness, whilst the faculties develop themselves at +stolen intervals.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE APOTHEOSIS OF CRAM</span></h2> + + +<p>We have reached a point at which it is advisable to take a broad survey +of the direction in which education systems are hurrying the world. Have +these educational methods a definite objective, or is their sole purpose +the production of scholars manufactured <i>en bloc</i>?</p> + +<p>These are important questions that need careful answering. Upon the face +of it, there is no doubt that in this country, at least, educational +establishments have, up to the present, aimed only at turning out +scholars of certain intellectual types. The result of this process has +been shown in the preceding pages to be sufficiently disastrous in its +effects upon its victims. There are, in fact, few social evils which +cannot be traced, directly or indirectly, to its agency.</p> + +<p>But as yet there has been no dominant motive-power, working invisibly +towards a definite end, behind the educational machinery of the country.</p> + +<p>A general feeling has been fomented of late, however, that all +education, from the lowest step to the highest, ought to be co-ordinated +and organized into a single piece of State-directed machinery. The +danger of this can only be appreciated by an examination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">{110}</a></span> of the effects +already produced by such a system in other countries.</p> + +<p>Germany offers in this connection the best possible example. The +interference of the State in educational matters has there been brought +to perfection. Absolute control is exercised by the Government in +everything appertaining to the instruction of youth all over Germany. +The Emperor has become so autocratic in the exercise of this control in +the kingdom of Prussia, that he talks openly about manufacturing this or +that kind of educational article exactly in the manner in which a +manufacturer would discuss putting some commodity upon the market.</p> + +<p>There is not the slightest attempt on the part of the Prussian +Government to disguise the political uses to which their supreme +authority in educational matters is put. One of the first acts of the +Emperor William II., on succeeding to the throne, was to issue the most +plain-spoken instructions to the Government of Prussia in reference to +State interference with the schools for political purposes.</p> + +<p>'For a long time,' it was declared in the royal decree,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> 'I have been +occupied with the thought how to make the school useful for the purpose +of counteracting the spread of socialistic and communistic ideas.... The +history of modern times down to the present day must be introduced more +than hitherto into the curriculum, and the pupils must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span> be shown that +the executive power of the State alone can protect for each individual +his family, his freedom, and his rights.'</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> For information on this and many other points connected +with the subject of education in Prussia, I am indebted to Mr. Michael +E. Sadler's special report to the Board of Education on 'Problems in +Prussian Secondary Education for Boys.'</p></div> + +<p>Later on follows the recommendation that, 'by striking references to +actual facts, it should be made clear even to young people that a +well-ordered constitution under secure monarchical rule is the +indispensable condition for the protection and welfare of each +individual, both as a citizen and as a worker; that, on the other hand, +the doctrines of social democracy are, in point of fact, infeasible; and +that, if they were put into practice, the liberty of each individual +would be subjected to intolerable restraint, even within the very circle +of the home. The ideas of the Socialists are sufficiently defined +through their own writings for it to be possible to depict them in a way +which will shock the feelings and the practical good-sense even of the +young.'</p> + +<p>The danger of this direct State control is obvious. It renders all +liberty of thought absolutely impossible. Politics, religion, social +views—all are systematically worked into the curriculum for the object +of stifling independent ideas, criticisms, and whatever else may be of +value to the interests of the community at large, although possibly +highly inconvenient to the established order.</p> + +<p>To cram the youth of the nation after this fashion with all the facts +and fancies that may happen to suit the weaknesses of the national +constitution, is exactly the way in which to bring about the decay of +both Government and country. Merely from a political standpoint, +therefore, nothing could be more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span> disastrous to the State than to make +use of its power of educational control in order to stifle opposition +and independent criticism.</p> + +<p>It is equally clear that, wherever the Government possesses this power, +it will use it as far as is practicable for the purpose of +self-preservation. Almost for a century the Prussian authorities have +been getting the control of their national schools more and more into +their own hands. They have now succeeded in bringing the application of +the theory of State interference to the high-water mark of +practicability. From the rudiments of the alphabet to the history of +economics, everything in the Prussian curriculum may be suspected of +serving some political purpose. The schoolboy is regarded by the +authorities as a mere pawn, to be moved on the national board in strict +accordance with the political necessities of the hour.</p> + +<p>For some years past, the attention of Prussia and of the whole German +Empire has been concentrated upon the commercial rivalry of the +different nations of the world. The chief, if not the sole, educational +aim has been to produce a percentage-calculating machine on a wholesale +plan, equipped with certain devices for the successful carrying on of +trade. The German authorities became impregnated with the belief that +commercial supremacy could best be attained by organizing the whole +nation into a uniform body of workers trained to co-operation. +Everything of late years has been subordinated to this design.</p> + +<p>The commercial success of the scheme has been notorious. German +manufacturers have been gaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span> ground in all parts of the world. The +consular reports at the Foreign Office are filled with pessimistic +warnings about the decline of British trade at various points where it +was once supreme, and with significant statistics that show the rapid +advance of German commercial enterprise.</p> + +<p>But it does not follow, because Germany seems to have shot ahead of us +by leaps and bounds of late years, that she has adopted sound means to +accomplish this end. On the contrary, if the expedients by which this +commercial supremacy has been attained are an exaggeration of the worst +evils of education systems, then Germany has started upon a downward +path which must eventually lead her to the brink of ruin.</p> + +<p>And this is precisely the case. Cramming has been brought throughout +Germany to the level of a fine art. It is done, I must confess—for I +was myself subjected to the process for some years—more completely and +effectively than in this country. That is to say, the pupil is not +crammed in such an idiotic fashion that he forgets all that has been +stuffed into him immediately he has left school. The drilling, however +wrong it may be in principle, is thorough enough, in all conscience. It +may be, as it is elsewhere, the pestle and mortar system. But at least +the pestle is applied consistently, and each ingredient is perfectly +mixed before the next component is introduced.</p> + +<p>If, therefore, the object of education be to produce an article of a +certain type or consistency, then the Prussian school stands far in +advance of our own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span> cramming institutions. It may well be taken in that +case as a model for us to copy.</p> + +<p>People should, however, ask themselves these questions: Is it +international commercial rivalry that produces the necessity of a State +system of education to equip the nation for the struggle? Or is it the +State system of education, with its organized attempt to manufacture a +race of traders, which has artificially created the state of commercial +warfare into which we are rapidly drifting?</p> + +<p>The answer seems to me to be plain enough.</p> + +<p>The individuality of individuals is rapidly disappearing throughout that +part of the world which has chosen to subject itself to uniform +education systems. One Englishman is much like another, in the same way +that Russians, or Germans, or Frenchmen resemble each other. In other +words, the only individuality which education is leaving us is that of +nationality; and the reason of this is because the manners, the customs, +and the school systems of various countries still differ to a certain +extent.</p> + +<p>Instead, therefore, of the individual competing against the individual, +we are rapidly approaching the point where the whole strength and +resources of each nation will be employed to co-operate against the rest +of the world. And this is no mere natural outcome of evolution. Germany, +with her extraordinary cuteness and foresight, invented the game for her +own benefit a generation or two ago. She has spent the best part of half +a century equipping herself, hand over fist, for this kind of commercial +contest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span></p> + +<p>But what is she sacrificing in order to obtain this triumph of the +trader?</p> + +<p>There cannot be a question that she is deliberately and systematically +throwing away the most precious of all human possessions—the character +of the individual. At the Berlin Conference on Secondary Education, held +in 1890, Dr. Virchow observed: 'I regret that I cannot bear my testimony +to our having made progress in forming the character of pupils in our +schools. When I look back over the forty years during which I have been +Professor and Examiner—a period during which I have been brought in +contact not only with physicians and scientific investigators, but also +with many other types of men—I cannot say that I have the impression +that we have made material advances in training up men with strength of +character. On the contrary, I fear that we are on a downward path. The +number of "characters" becomes smaller. And this is connected with the +shrinkage in private and individual work done during a lad's school +life. For it is only by means of independent work that the pupil learns +to hold his own against external difficulties, and to find in his own +strength, in his own nature, in his own being, the means of resisting +such difficulties and of prevailing over them.'</p> + +<p>The inevitable result of this sacrifice of individuality must be the +intellectual decay of the nation, or at least its degeneration into a +state of hopeless mediocrity. Unless, therefore, Germany can persuade +other countries to adopt similar tactics, and to meet her on the plane +where she has already obtained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">{116}</a></span> the start of a generation, she must come +hopelessly to grief in the future.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, there seems every indication that the statesmen who lead +rival nations are only too ready to follow Germany's blind lead. In this +country it is only the blessed ignorance of the people which is holding +back those who are anxious to commit the folly that has put pounds, +shillings, and pence into German pockets, at the cost of taking +originality and character out of German heads.</p> + +<p>This educational suicide, it must also be remembered, can only be +committed without serious social disturbance in a despotically-governed +country like the German Empire. In England, with our system of party +government, a complete measure of State control in educational matters +would create a political pandemonium that would be little short of +appalling.</p> + +<p>The party struggles of the future would, if this Prussian system were +transplanted here, centre round educational control. The schools would +no longer be regarded as establishments for the instruction of youth; +they would be looked upon simply as the nursery of the future voter. A +Conservative Government would cram everything into the curriculum +calculated to stifle inconveniently progressive ideas, whilst a Radical +Government would try to banish from the schools all established beliefs +and conventions.</p> + +<p>Between these opposing stools the manufactured scholar would fall +lamentably to the ground. He would be neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. +There would be a perpetual chopping and changing in the methods<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span> of his +education, from which he would not even derive the benefit, so +gratefully acknowledged by Wordsworth, of being neglected by his +teachers.</p> + +<p>To talk of beating Germany at her own game is, therefore, the height of +absurdity. Nothing could result from such an endeavour but ruin to the +country. Under our party system it is obvious that it could not be done +with the remotest chance of success. And even if it were possible to +obtain steady uniform State interference, working always towards a +specific end, German methods would only be adopted at the expense of +increasing the pressure of cramming <i>en bloc</i>, and thereby multiplying +the evils which have been but faintly depicted in the foregoing pages.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE GREAT FALLACY</span></h2> + + +<p>That the world is badly ordered for humanity is a self-evident truth of +which the observant scarcely need reminding. It is equally obvious, from +the exquisite order and symmetry of animal and vegetable life, that +Providence is not to blame for the colossal mess into which civilization +has managed to lead the majority of mankind.</p> + +<p>Man is himself responsible for the present state of human affairs; and +although great things have been undeniably accomplished during the +progress of the nations, the magnificent achievements of exceptional +individuals pale beside the stupendous blundering of the many.</p> + +<p>It must surely be clear to everybody that there has been some evil +influence at work to arrest the fair promise and development of the +human race. The splendid march of intellectual progress from the dark +ages to the brilliant dawn of the nineteenth century, with its +glittering array of master minds and its titanic roll of genius, has +been suddenly brought to a dead halt. Here and there, during the past +generation, great figures have struggled up on to the world's stage and +grappled with the ebb-tide.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span> But the majestic stream of mediocrity has +swept away their dykes, and obliterated their landmarks with its +increasing volume.</p> + +<p>The remarkable fact can hardly have escaped attention that the more +humanity attempts to equip itself for the serious business of life, by +forcing itself into an educational strait-waistcoat, the more rapid +becomes the disappearance of character and genius, and even of ordinary +talent. Everybody is getting ground down to a level. It is scarcely +possible to point to a single civilized man and say: 'There is somebody +in whom every faculty has been developed and natural talent perfected to +its utmost capability.' The most that can be said of the individual is: +'There goes a Cambridge man or a grammar-school man, and when you have +knocked all the nonsense out of him you'll find he's not a bad fellow at +bottom.'</p> + +<p>We are not what we have made ourselves, but what we have chosen to allow +others to make us. Whatever may once have been the nursery of the human +race, it is now to a great extent the school. Some part—it generally is +the best part—of education takes place outside the class-room; but it +must be remembered that the atmosphere of home is generally impregnated +with the conventional traditions of the school and of the university.</p> + +<p>The evil influence that is so obviously undermining social and national +life must, therefore, first be sought in the principles upon which +education systems have been founded.</p> + +<p>Nothing is more astonishing than to reflect upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">{120}</a></span> the unintelligent +grounds on which people base their adherence to the principles of modern +education. They are unable, in the first place, to get over the fact +that their forefathers were brought up in the same fashion before them. +It is a sheer impossibility for most people to question anything that +has been going on for any length of time unchecked.</p> + +<p>The undisputed possession of a custom for so many years converts it into +the legal property of the nation, whence it derives a sacred character, +and nobody dreams of meddling with it. Any abuses it may bring in its +train are then conveniently ascribed to the perversity of Providence. +The cherished convention is never questioned. That is the remarkable +thing about it. People can be brought to understand, by means of a +flourish of dazzling prospectuses and newspaper advertisements, that a +bicycle is an improvement on a bone-shaker, or that pneumatic tyres are +more comfortable on rough roads than iron-rimmed wheels. But that +appears to be the set limit of their comprehension.</p> + +<p>They are capable of being made to grasp, after nearly exhausting the +resources of a wealthy syndicate, something that obviously affects their +material comfort. But progress in ideas, or anything in the shape of +moral revolution, has to undergo a thousand-fold more tortuous process +before it can be made to filter through a convention. The academic +product is, it must be remembered, a bundle of conventions. If the +article has been properly manufactured, and bears the hall-mark of the +maker and the stamp of the country of its origin, there is nothing else +there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span> for the truth to filter into. It simply drops through and +vapourizes without disturbing anything.</p> + +<p>Conventionality is therefore an insuperable obstacle, as far as the +majority of minds are concerned, to the discovery that the established +principles of education are absolutely false. These principles will +never be questioned. It is good enough for the average man that his +fellow-creatures have been contented with them since time immemorial, +and that they are diligently practised in the schools and colleges whose +names have been household words for generations past.</p> + +<p>Next to this antiquated conservatism of the least intelligent and most +dispiriting type, comes the false shame that the majority of people +exhibit when caught displaying ignorance of any of the facts which +cramming systems have pronounced to be indispensable to a general +education. Probably more real culture is nipped in the bud by the +ridiculous assumption that everybody must be a walking encyclopædia, +than by all the Philistine conventions and stupidities put together.</p> + +<p>In the course of a recent conversation with an exceptionally brilliant +woman of my acquaintance, it transpired that she believed Winchester and +Cambridge to be in the same county. This lack of geographical knowledge +did not appear, however, to have impaired her intellectual faculties. +There are many persons who can accurately locate any town in England, +and yet are vastly inferior in mental capacity to the lady who thought +that Cambridge was in Hampshire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">{122}</a></span></p> + +<p>Why should an individual know more than it is useful and convenient for +him to know? For the student of foreign politics it is essential to be +aware of the geographical difference between Tokio and Peking; but of +what earthly use would this knowledge be to a man who devoted the whole +of his life to inquiring into the domestic routine of the extinct dodo, +or to the improvement of agriculture by the application of scientific +manures?</p> + +<p>Life is short, and it is only possible within the limits of the brief +span allotted to us upon earth to acquire a certain number of facts. It +is monstrously absurd to sacrifice our best years in stuffing so many +facts into the brain, in order to avoid being laughed at by a few +thin-minded pedants as an ignoramus. Some consolation, at least, might +surely be derived from the reflection that many of the greatest geniuses +whom the world has produced were profoundly ignorant as to ninety per +cent. of the things which are considered to be indispensable knowledge +at the present day.</p> + +<p>Nobody can hope to read all the books that are popularly supposed to +have been digested by the well-educated man. It would be impossible to +get through a tithe of them. Yet how many people there are who will +sooner tell a deliberate lie, than acknowledge having omitted to read +some classic that happens to be mentioned in the course of conversation! +And this is simply due to the infatuated belief that culture consists in +stuffing one's self with the ideas of other people. A man whose brain +was teeming with his own thoughts and creations, but who had neglected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">{123}</a></span> +to stock it with the hundred thousand conventional facts culled from the +hundred best books selected for him by other people, would be looked +upon as an uneducated boor by cultured pedants of the conventional type.</p> + +<p>It will be seen, therefore, that this false shame, inspired by an +unwholesome terror of public ridicule, plays a very important part in +tying people to the apron-strings of education, and warping their +judgment.</p> + +<p>But there is also a third factor which must be taken seriously into +account. This is the widespread credulousness not only as to the +efficacy, but as to the indispensability, of the ordinary methods of +instruction as mental training. People have actually come to believe +that no one can think without being taught to do so by means of all +kinds of mathematical and classical gymnastics.</p> + +<p>Whence comes this monstrous notion I do not pretend to be capable of +explaining—I merely note its universal existence. Probably no doctrine +is more deeply ingrained in the mind of the average person. There does +not seem to be any logic or sense in it; but somebody with a huge sense +of humour must have once started the craze—much in the way that a +practical joker will stare intently at nothing in a London street until +he has collected a large and inquisitive crowd, and will then steal +quietly away, leaving everybody looking vacuously at the same spot.</p> + +<p>In the whole history of education there is no greater absurdity than the +notion that a boy can be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span> taught to think by training his mind backwards +and forwards in the conjugation of irregular verbs and the vagaries of +Latin or Greek inflections. Exercises of this ingeniously ridiculous +kind only serve to empty the brain of ideas, and to make room for the +reception of facts crammed in on the wholesale system. It is an accepted +fact, however, that the brain, in order to pursue its normal functions, +must first be subjected to a course of training in abstract subjects as +far removed as possible from all human interest; that common sense, in +other words, is a product of Greek roots and algebraical formulæ—not of +the natural application of the thinking faculties to the ordinary +circumstances of everyday life.</p> + +<p>The hopeless imbecility of this tenet of faith is only equalled by the +depth to which it has taken root in the popular mind. The wonderful +thing is that the total failure of the plan has not long ago convinced +everybody of its uselessness. But that is at once the mischief and the +charm of the convention: no amount of practical demonstration will +prejudice anybody against it.</p> + +<p>In this way the great fallacy of education has been allowed to grow up +and to spread its false and obnoxious principles like a network over the +whole civilized world. With all the baneful effects produced by these +fallacious dogmas staring them in the face, people do not seem to have +been capable of tumbling to the fact that the origin of the social evils +which surround them lies in the very calf of gold that they and their +forefathers have set up and worshipped.</p> + +<p>Even the reformers of education appear to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span> deceived themselves. +Many of them—Arnold and Thring conspicuous amongst their number—have +tried to abolish this abuse or to remedy that defect; but not one has +gone to the root of the evil, and has boldly stated that the whole +system of education is based upon totally erroneous +principles—designed, not to encourage progress and generate ideas, but +to stifle development, and to place an insurmountable obstacle in the +path of the evolution of humanity.</p> + +<p>The world has acquiesced in the deceit, and so the great fallacy has +grown up unchecked, and, like a rolling stone, gathered moss from +generation to generation, until its hideous proportions seem to have +embraced the universe, and to have shut out every particle of light from +the vision of unhappy, convention-haunted mankind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">REAL EDUCATION</span></h2> + + +<p>There is no such thing in existence as a system of genuine education. A +large number of institutions exist, as we have seen, for the purpose of +manufacturing and cramming, after an approved plan, the youth of the +upper and middle classes, and there is a well-organized system of sham +education spread throughout the country under the title of 'public +elementary schools.' That is the sum of modern educational effort.</p> + +<p>The word 'education,' when used in the sense that is commonly applied to +it, could not be satisfactorily and adequately defined in less than a +post octavo pamphlet. It signifies an enormous number of things, from +pot-hooks to trigonometry. It means history, geography, physics, +chemistry, natural history, mineralogy, Latin, Greek, French, +arithmetic, algebra, Euclid, and goodness knows how many more things, +jammed in at so much a pound. It means taking a child, shaking +everything out of its head, and then stuffing every nook and corner with +facts it will never be able to remember, and with dates for which it +cannot have any use. It means risking the mental shipwreck of the clever +child, and making<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span> the stupid more dense. And it means popping the +individual into a mould, and dishing him up as a dummy.</p> + +<p>What it does not mean, is developing the faculties of each individual.</p> + +<p>There is, in fact, a wide difference between what education is and what +it should be. If every school and college throughout the country were +closed to-morrow, it would probably effect some negative good within an +appreciable measure of time, and it would certainly abolish much +positive harm that is being unceasingly produced by the present methods +of instruction. If no effort be made to develop the faculties of each +individual, then it is better to leave them alone to develop on their +own account. But nothing can be more pernicious than to take the youth +of the nation wholesale, and to destroy most of the good that is latent +in them, in order to manufacture them into something which Nature never +intended them to be.</p> + +<p>This is not education, but fabrication. It is destruction, not +development. Real education would consist in assisting every individual +to develop the faculties with which Nature had endowed him, and to train +to their highest capacity any special talents that might reveal +themselves during the process. Above all things, real education would +encourage the utilization of the brain for purposes of thought and +reflection, instead of trying to make it a warehouse for storing +van-loads of useless knowledge.</p> + +<p>It is absurd to assume that this simple educational aim is beyond the +reach of humanity. That its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">{128}</a></span> introduction into the practical affairs of +life would cause a stupendous revolution cannot be denied. But it does +not follow, on that account, that it should be conveniently consigned, +like many another pressing reform, to the pigeon-hole of the impossible.</p> + +<p>The main thing that is required to carry out the true principle of +education is more individual common sense and less State interference. +The mischievous enactment that children should commence any process of +instruction at the tender age of five should be at once struck off the +statute-book. No doubt something would have to be done to remove young +children of the poorest class, in large towns at least, from the +influence of sordid homes for a certain period of the day. It does not +follow, however, that they should be subjected to the routine of an +elementary school and crammed with superficial and unsuitable knowledge.</p> + +<p>Children want room to think; their minds have to grow up as well as +their bodies. Mental nourishment is quite as necessary as physical +nourishment; but it is nonsensical to apply them both in the same +fashion. The mind has to be fed in a totally different manner to the +body. The former is a delicate operation, that requires far more care +and common sense than is necessary for the boiling of milk or the +preparation of an infant food.</p> + +<p>The child's mind is not a blank, upon which anything may be written at +will; it is scored invisibly with heredity and individual tendencies. +The function of the parent is to see that nothing is done to destroy +this delicate fabric, and to watch carefully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span> for revelations of natural +bent and character, in order to encourage and develop them.</p> + +<p>Anything in the shape of actual teaching or instruction ought to be +rigorously avoided. Facts should be regarded as poisons, to be used +sparingly and with discrimination. Every time that a fact is imparted an +idea is driven out. That should be carefully borne in mind. The +operation of the simplest fact upon the intelligence is highly complex. +It is not only a thing to imprint upon the memory, but it is also a +means of diverting thought into the channels of the commonplace. Every +fact closes up an avenue of the imagination.</p> + +<p>To take an illustration, let us suppose someone to impart to a little +child the information that it is a physiological impossibility for +angels to have wings as well as arms. This prosaic piece of intelligence +would, in one moment, annihilate most of the romance of childhood. It +would be a blow from which the imagination might never recover. The +child would, by a rapid process of thought, lose all faith in fairyland, +and in the thousand and one fancies of the youthful brain that are the +mainspring of the development of the imagination.</p> + +<p>Why is it that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred lose this faculty in +the earliest period of their childhood? It is simply because their +bringing-up has consisted in a persistent inoculation with the material +facts of life, and a correspondingly persistent elimination of all +imaginative ideas. 'Don't let the children believe such rubbish!' is a +constant ejaculation of the mechanical-minded person who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span> does not +permit himself to suffer any illusions, and who has long since 'done +with romance and all that kind of twaddle.'</p> + +<p>At any cost the imagination of the child should be encouraged and +developed. It is the richest vein in the whole mental machinery of man, +the faculty within which genius most frequently lurks, and where it can +be most easily and permanently destroyed. Grown-up people should +remember that an indiscreet answer to a childish question, or a snub +administered to an inquiring mind, is often sufficient to check thought. +It should be mainly the care of the parent to encourage the imagination +in young children, recollecting that up to a certain age its development +depends upon all the absurdities and fantastic notions of childhood +which the average adult is so fond of repressing.</p> + +<p>By the exercise of prudence and some show of sympathy, it would then be +possible to bring a child up to the age of seven or eight without +damaging its mind or destroying its faculties. From that point onwards +the child's education ought to depend upon the individual himself. There +should be no such thing as instruction, in the sense which implies the +cramming of the brain with information, or such mental gymnastics as +conjugating irregular verbs and hunting for the least common multiple.</p> + +<p>The position of teacher and pupil would have to be practically reversed. +The pupil would lead, and the teacher follow. In fact, the latter should +become an adviser rather than instructor, the child selecting those +studies, or those arts or crafts, which are to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span> made the principal +objective of its education, whilst to the mentor would fall the rôle of +encouraging and assisting the course of study or practice at a morally +safe distance.</p> + +<p>Boys and girls would then not learn, but investigate. The process of +learning should be got rid of altogether, being a clumsy, dronish way of +acquiring knowledge, and one that tends to keep the brain in a perpetual +state of dependence.</p> + +<p>Ignorance, one ought to remember, is a valuable incentive to +investigation. Young people should be left as much as possible to find +things out for themselves. Education should resemble a person groping +forward in the dark; and only so much light ought to be let in upon the +process as seems desirable in each individual case. In that way, at +least, the pupil would learn to think for himself; and even if little +more were accomplished than this, it would be of ten thousand times +greater value to the individual, and to the community at large, than the +acquisition of a large stock of facts at the price of losing all power +of reflection and initiative.</p> + +<p>Let me give an illustration of what I will call the opposing methods of +education.</p> + +<p>We will suppose, for the sake of argument, that the only available book +for the instruction of a class of boys was that excellent but abstruse +work known as 'Bradshaw's Railway Guide.' The modern schoolmaster would +draw up an exhaustive and complicated scheme. So much time would be +devoted to parsing every sentence through the book. The figures would be +added up, and subtracted, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">{132}</a></span> divided. He would concoct neat little +mathematical problems: If the 11.40 express from Paddington travelled to +Swindon at fifty miles an hour and broke down half-way, at what o'clock +would the 12.15 parliamentary train overtake it? and so forth. But—most +valuable exercise of all—long tables of trains would be learnt off by +heart, with the names of stopping places and the prices of the +first-class tickets.</p> + +<p>A genuine educationist would set to work in a much simpler fashion. He +would tell the boys to look out a good train from Birmingham to +Newcastle. Each boy would be free to tackle the problem in his own +fashion, and the task—if successfully accomplished—would do much +towards developing the thinking faculties.</p> + +<p>In any system of real education it would be impossible for the +schoolmaster to dictate the subjects to which the pupil should give his +attention, and it would be equally impossible for the parent to say 'I +intend my son to enter such-and-such a profession.' Nobody can settle +beforehand what talents the child is to develop. That is a private +matter in which no third person has any right to interfere between the +child itself and Nature.</p> + +<p>Modern education consists entirely of interference. There is, in the +first place, the interference of the parent, who insists upon an +artistic boy becoming a banker, puts an incipient tradesman into the +army, or tries to make a scholar out of a mechanic. Then there comes the +interference of the schoolmaster, who has his favourite recipe of Latin +verses, quadratic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span> equations, and what not, to stuff into every head he +can get hold of for a few terms. Lastly appears the Government, which +declares that nobody shall enter the army, or navy, or civil service, +without devoting his best years to being crammed in such a scandalous +fashion, that it is a toss-up whether he breaks down altogether under +the ordeal, or simply forgets, a few months after the consummation of +the process, all that has been pitchforked into his brain.</p> + +<p>When a baby is brought into the world the parents spend the first year +of its life in wondering and speculating about its future. Will it be a +great author, or a Bishop, or a Lord Chancellor? If its mouth twitches +when anyone slams a door, or it gurgles happily when a note is struck on +the piano, they declare it has genius for music; and if it amuses itself +later on by crude efforts to draw distorted figures with distorted faces +and distorted arms and legs, they jump to the conclusion that they have +produced an infant Correggio.</p> + +<p>Why does all this anxiety about the child's individuality disappear the +moment its intelligence begins to dawn? One must suppose, at any rate, +that it does, because the parent immediately sets about getting all the +originality knocked out of his offspring, and does not grudge the +payment of heavy fees to secure this object.</p> + +<p>The dreams about the Lord Chancellorship, or the gold medal at the +musical academy, vanish as if by magic. There is no more talk about +bishoprics or artistic fame. The parents settle down to the conventional +task of having the child fitted for something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span> it has no desire to be; +and the notion that the particular faculties they observed—or thought +they observed—during its early infancy should or could be developed +never appears to enter their heads for a moment.</p> + +<p>Some children develop later than others; but with proper care and +encouragement it would be possible not to lead, but to follow, each +child to its own bent. The child must show the way—that is the essence +of real education, and it involves a complete upheaval of the principles +upon which systems of instruction are at present founded.</p> + +<p>There is only one way in which people are now able to obtain a genuine +education, and it goes by the name—applied with more or less +contempt—of self-culture. The process consists simply in the individual +choosing his own subjects and studying them as best he can. No doubt the +method could be immensely extended and improved, for the self-cultured +man has no mentor to guide him when he is in perplexity, and would +profit by experienced advice.</p> + +<p>But even were this not the case, it would be far better to abolish +schools and universities and to let everybody shift for himself, than to +insist upon subjecting the youth of the nation to a system that +ingeniously manufactures failures for every walk in life, and +accomplishes practically nothing else.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE OPEN DOOR TO INTELLIGENCE</span></h2> + + +<p>It has been the chief aim in these pages, not to elaborate a scheme of +education on new principles, but to point out the utter folly of +persisting with a system that has worked a vast amount of evil, and +cannot be proved to have achieved any real good.</p> + +<p>Our great men have not been the product of a school curriculum, or of an +academic training. In no single instance, as far as can be ascertained, +has nobility of character, or the possession of genius, or soundness of +judgment, or even beauty of diction in literature, been attributable to +the grind in grammatical rules, the fact-cramming, and the mental +gymnastics which go to make up what is called 'a liberal education.'</p> + +<p>In science, where the highest intellectual qualities are brought into +play, most of the great discoverers have owed their entire scientific +knowledge to self-taught methods of investigation. And it is the same +thing in every field of research where the thinking faculties must reach +the supreme limit of development—namely, that nothing is traceable to +academic learning, and that everything is owing to the mental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">{136}</a></span> +initiative which is produced solely by self-inculcated habits of +reflection.</p> + +<p>To give education systems the credit, or even a share in the credit, of +all the splendid achievements in politics, science, art, and literature +is sheer intellectual laziness. It is the curse of the age that few +people will trouble to question the existing order of things, and that +nobody—except those who make the manufacture of opinions their +profession—can be found to express an independent opinion on any +subject under the sun.</p> + +<p>That is one reason why newspapers exist in their present form. The +leading article is primarily the invention of the stupid, conventional, +well-educated man whose profound knowledge of dates and irregular verbs +has, unfortunately, had the effect of preventing him from forming his +own judgment on public affairs. The Press, which must have been +originally established, like the famous <i>Peking Gazette</i>, for the +dissemination of news, has long ago discovered that people prefer to +obtain their opinions ready-made.</p> + +<p>The wise argument we hear being urged in a railway-carriage or at a +dinner-table is merely an intellectual reach-me-down purchased at a +book-stall for the modest price of one penny. If there were only one +newspaper, and consequently only one leading article on a particular +topic, political discussion would die a natural death.</p> + +<p>The political opinion to which the majestic alderman or the +classically-trained savant gives such profound utterance is the opinion, +not of himself, but of some poor devil who knows nothing of the +blessings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span> of a university education, but who writes in a garret, or in +a dingy office off Fleet Street, to earn his bread and cheese.</p> + +<p>Its value or political insight need not be disparaged on that account. I +would trust it a thousand times rather than I would trust the +opinion—if such a thing should have any existence—of the average +educated man whose brains have been jellified at school or college. The +point is not the value of the humble scribe's opinion, however, but the +fact that a man, of what would be called inferior educational +attainments, has to be engaged to do mental work that cannot be +performed by the brains of people who have enjoyed all the advantages +that a first-rate education is supposed to confer.</p> + +<p>The vote of the working-man is scarcely more unintelligently applied at +election times than the vote of the educated man. On the contrary, the +former may be said to think independently, or at least to use an +independent instinct, whilst the latter is contented to believe in the +iniquity of one party or the virtue of another, according to the opinion +of the man in the garret. The working man wants beer, and he knows it. +The China question, the war in South Africa, the housing of the working +classes, the great education controversy—everything is beer to him. It +is the Government who cheapen beer, or who regulate the percentage of +arsenic to be used in brewing, that command his support—not Ministers +who promise to maintain British supremacy in the Far East, or who put +forward an attractive programme of domestic legislation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span></p> + +<p>The natural consequence of this wholesale production of dummy members of +society is that the strings of government are really pulled by the +intelligent few. Whatever the external constitution of Great Britain may +be, the real power does not lie with Parliament or with the Executive, +but is invariably wielded by one or more men of commanding ability.</p> + +<p>Nominally, the administration is in the hands of the social aristocracy, +that is to say, of a few peer families and their innumerable relations. +Whichever of the two great parties in the State may happen to be in +power, the Government is invariably exploited by members of the peer +class, who practically divide the spoils of office amongst themselves +and their immediate entourage.</p> + +<p>Although, however, the English nobility manage to usurp all the offices +of State, and to secure all the plums for themselves, it is not they who +really govern the country. No doubt the landed aristocracy are +politically the most fit to govern. They have no commercial or +industrial interests that may bring corrupt and undesirable influences +into public life. But they are unfitted for the position they ought to +occupy by a system of education that manufactures mediocrity, and +stifles the very qualities of imaginativeness and initiative which are +indispensable to sound statesmanship.</p> + +<p>What is the inevitable result?</p> + +<p>The self-made man, with all his splendid intellectual faculties +developed, with his independence of judgment, and his acquired habit of +thinking for himself instead of leaning on precedent and borrowed +wisdom,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span> rides the dummy Government class with whip and spur. He lays on +the lash here and digs in the rowels there, goading on his steed in any +direction that chances to suit his purpose. He naturally places personal +ambition in front of national expediency, because his political career +is necessarily a constant fight against odds. Either he must rise +superior to the peer combination, as Disraeli succeeded in doing after a +struggle unparalleled in the annals of political history, or he will be +crushed by it.</p> + +<p>But the necessities of his position render the self-made man a +particularly undesirable element in the administration of public +affairs. During the course of his successful upward struggle he has, in +nine cases out of ten, entangled himself in commercial or industrial +interests from which it is difficult or impossible for him to dissociate +himself. By this means, and through the necessarily adventurous +character of his political career, he can scarcely avoid becoming, +however undeserved the imputation may be, an object of suspicion. And +when once distrust of this kind has been allowed to permeate through our +public life, the degeneration of parliamentary government must follow.</p> + +<p>Disraeli spent the greater part of his political life in manœuvring +for the premiership. When his object had been successfully attained, all +his great qualities were turned to the advantage of the State. But up to +that point he was compelled, in order to survive in his colossal +struggle against the aristocratic element in politics, to play for his +own hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">{140}</a></span></p> + +<p>That must always be the case with the self-made man. His first objective +must be his own self-preservation, and if he wishes to gain power he is +bound to exploit the political situation, regardless of the best +interests of the country, because every man's hand is against him until +the summit of his ambition has been reached.</p> + +<p>Schools and colleges in which the mind is crammed instead of being +developed cannot produce statesmen. They can manufacture in unlimited +quantities the type of well-intentioned, honourable mediocrity with +which our public service is stocked. But as long as this process is +continued, the real power in the administration of the affairs of the +Empire will remain virtually in the hands of a few able individuals of +the wrong calibre. There will be a dummy Prime Minister, and a dummy +Cabinet; but the wires will be worked by the self-made man who must +place himself first and his country second, with consequences usually +disastrous to the national welfare.</p> + +<p>There is no intended disparagement of the self-made man. He is, and +always has been, the best intellectual product of the age. The greatest +statesmen, philosophers, scientists, writers, and other men of genius +have been self-made or self-cultured. But it does not follow because +great statesmen have been self-made men, that it is for the good of the +country that its rulers should be drawn from that class. As has already +been pointed out, the self-made man usually creates far more mischief in +the course of his upward political struggle, than is compensated for +afterwards when he has secured his position and can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span> turn his talents to +the account of his country, instead of for the purpose of securing his +own personal advancement.</p> + +<p>There is, it must be remembered, a national emergency for which we have +to prepare. Our extended Imperial obligations, and the sharp commercial +competition which has caused some of the great Powers to sacrifice +individuality wholesale in order to mobilize an army of traders, make it +imperative that measures should be taken to preserve the Anglo-Saxon +race.</p> + +<p>The thing to avoid at this moment is imitation of tactics that will send +every nation adopting them backward in evolution. To secure a temporary +commercial triumph at the enormous sacrifice of the natural development +of the individual, would be a fatal and short-sighted policy that could +only end in national ruin. We have not yet reached the worst depths of +the education fallacy, but we are complacently drifting in that +direction.</p> + +<p>State interference in educational matters may be an excellent thing when +the whole energies of the central authorities happen to be exerted in +mitigation of the evils of the national system. But it must be borne in +mind that political parties and the heads of departments are constantly +changing in this country. The reformer of to-day may to-morrow be +superseded by a retrogressive-minded mediocrity; and there would be no +guarantee that the beneficial influence of the one would not be +annihilated afterwards by the pernicious intermeddling of the other.</p> + +<p>Instead of casting about for means of securing a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span> State monopoly of the +ruinous type of education supplied by our schools and colleges, it would +be more conducive to the salvation of the country if the whole energies +of the nation were directed towards revolutionizing the system of +instruction itself.</p> + +<p>If schoolmasters can accomplish nothing better than the manufacture of +set types of humanity, the progress of mankind would be promoted more +rapidly without their assistance.</p> + +<p>What is, after all, the main object of education?</p> + +<p>It is to assist everybody to develop his faculties and talents, so that +he may be fitted for the position in life which Nature intended him to +occupy.</p> + +<p>Nobody can assert for an instant that the conventional methods of +instructing youth either achieve, or even appear to aim at achieving, +this end. The school does not pretend to discover or to encourage +individual talents. It offers to pound so much Latin grammar, +mathematics, history, geography, etc., into each pupil, and to turn him +out at the end of the process with exactly the same mental equipment as +that acquired by the rest of his school-fellows.</p> + +<p>The principal aim of this book has been to draw attention to the +incongruities and evils brought about by this sham and worthless system +of education. That the world contains many illustrious examples of +culture and genius is no proof that the slightest benefit has been +derived by anybody from parsing Ovid or cramming facts and dates. 'The +best part of every man's education,' said Sir Walter Scott, 'is that +which he gives to himself'; and it might be added,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span> with literal truth, +that it is the only part which is of the slightest service in developing +the mind with which he has been naturally endowed.</p> + +<p>All that I have presumed to advocate is that the door should be left +open to intelligence.</p> + +<p>The education systems of the present day are particularly felicitous in +keeping it firmly closed. It is only by dodging the schoolmaster and the +coach that youthful talent stands a chance of being brought to maturity. +The greatest achievements are not the work of senior wranglers and +Balliol scholars: they have been accomplished by class-room dunces, like +Clive and Wellington; by school idlers, such as Napoleon, Disraeli, +Swift, and Newton; or by self-taught men like Stephenson, John Hunter, +Livingstone, and Herschel.</p> + +<p>It cannot be doubted that the institution of a rational method of +developing the mind of the individual would sweep away all these +anomalies. There are thousands of men in responsible positions who would +willingly exchange their entire stock of classical or mathematical +knowledge for a modicum of common sense and judgment. If everybody were +encouraged to think for himself, the Empire would have no lack of good +servants to carry on the traditions of the past; and the dummy unit of +administration would give place to a self-reliant man, capable of moving +with the times, and of serving the public interest according to its +wants, instead of clinging merely to routine and precedent.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the misery suffered by humanity has been produced by +artificial means. Providence did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">{144}</a></span> not intend this world to be a place of +purgatory for the majority of mankind. We are what we have made +ourselves, and not what evolution intended us to be. It is in our power +to mitigate much of the evil we have ignorantly manufactured for our own +discomfiture, if we only attack it at the roots. And the greatest curse +humanity has laid upon itself is that arbitrary interference with the +natural development of the mind which is misnamed 'education.'</p> + +<p class='center' style="margin-top: 2.5em;">THE END</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class='center'>BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Curse of Education, by Harold E. 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