Part 4 (1/2)

Schooline that because a boy happens to have survived their syste the latter must necessarily be the one perfect method--just as the fond mother, whose infant has been enabled by estion to outlive a particular food, believes that it is the only food upon which babies can possibly be brought up

When we come to survey impartially the effects of this systeht ho soe to survive the treathteous individuals, what is to be said of the degeneration of the majority? It is surely absurd, with the ano youth staring one in the face, to ascribe it to mere boy nature

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

CHAPTER VIII

THE STRUGGLE OF THE EDUCATED

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 nu subjected, from his earliest childhood, to aAll of these, however, have been directly attributable to his education Wethe subject any further, certain disabilities that ht about indirectly

It is bad enough, as most of us will have perceived, to coenial to him or not But it is preposterous that the sae should be forced upon all alike This is, however, exactly what is being done in every educational establishhout the Empire, with the most disastrous consequences to the victims of the system

Let us turn once more to the e educated e of four or five During the following years he receives the necessary grounding to prepare him for the lower forms of a public school At eleven, or thereabouts, he cohout 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-foro, and probably exactly like the sixth-form boy of ten years hence Not only does he possess precisely the sae 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

After he has left school the same process is carried on at the university Here he is craain with the same facts, the same rules, and the sa dinned into scores of other young one conscientiously through this routine, he takes his degree with the rest

This airaduated; that is to say, he has obtained a certificate to the effect that he has acquired a certain regulation stock of knowledge

What happens next?

The unhappy graduate suddenly makes the discovery that his university qualification is not the ready passport to eined 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 thefor the public examinations, his prospects of immediate starvation are excessively favourable

It was rereat deal of ti-houses in the poorer districts of the Metropolis, that a startling number of university men seemed to drift into them Yet these are the hly for the holding of good positions

In so has disadvantages which serve to handicap its victims severely in practical life It cannot beto all educational tradition, are classed as the ood mental ability, actually labour under obvious disabilities in this connection

nobody can urge that there is not enough work of a nature deo 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 -house, or even in extreme cases to solicit parish relief

The explanation of this strange anomaly lies simply in the fact that the educational mill not only manufactures duher types of schools and colleges there is generally a choice of three patterns--the classical due 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 ofout everybody with a coe is to institute a disastrous forequipped annually by our schools and universities for the perforht 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

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 saures, and dates Here, as in reality everywhere else, there is need of originality, intellectual independence, insight, judgination Journalisency and the reporter The gates of literature are opened wide for striking and vigorous thought, trenchant criticise academically-trained man to offer? He has an assortment of second-hand ideas borrowed froil 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 froypt; and he is able to furnish, without reference to history, the exact date upon which King John signed Magna Charta, and the precise nuht in the Wars of the Roses

Such are the literary accoraduates, 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 forreat Those who like their literature at second hand prefer snippets froate Calendar to the wise saws of Bacon; and they would rather have their blood stirred by quotations froade,' or 'Pay, pay, pay,' than read a paraphrase of the combined wisdom of all the philosophers of the nineteenth century