Part 10 (1/1)

That must always be the case with the self-made man His first objective ain power he is bound to exploit the political situation, regardless of the best interests of the country, because every ainst him until the sumes in which thedeveloped cannot produce statesmen They can manufacture in unlimited quantities the type of well-intentioned, honourable mediocrity hich 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

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 statesenius have been self-reat statesood 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 le, than is compensated for afterwards when he has secured his position and can turn his talents to the account of his country, instead of for the purpose of securing his own personal advanceency for which we have to prepare Our extended Iations, and the sharp coreat Powers to sacrifice individuality wholesale in order to mobilize an army of traders, make it ilo-Saxon race

The thing to avoid at this moment is i them backward in evolution To secure a temporary commercial triumph at the enormous sacrifice of the natural develophted policy that could only end in national ruin We have not yet reached the worst depths of the education fallacy, but we are co in that direction

State interference in educational ies of the central authorities happen to be exerted in ation of the evils of the national system But it must be borne in mind that political parties and the heads of depart in this country The reforressive-uarantee that the beneficial influence of the one would not be annihilated afterwards by the pernicious inter about fora 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

If school better than the ress of mankind would be promoted more rapidly without their assistance

What is, after all, the main object of education?

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

nobody can assert for an instant that the conventionalyouth either achieve, or even appear to ai, this end The school does not pretend to discover or to encourage individual talents It offers to pound so raphy, 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

The principal airuities and evils brought about by this sham and worthless system of education That the world contains enius is no proof that the slightest benefit has been derived by anybody fro facts and dates 'The best part of every ives to hiht be added, with literal truth, that it is the only part which is of the slightest service in developing the mind hich he has been naturally endowed

All that I have presumed to advocate is that the door should be left open to intelligence

The education syste it fir the schoolmaster and the coach that youthful talent stands a chance of being brought to reatest achievelers and Balliol scholars: they have been accoton; by school idlers, such as Napoleon, Disraeli, Swift, and Newton; or by self-taught stone, and Herschel

It cannot be doubted that the institution of a rationalthe mind of the individual would sweep away all these anomalies There are thousands of e their entire stock of classical or e for a ed to think for hiood servants to carry on the traditions of the past; and the duive place to a self-reliantthe public interest according to its wants, instead of clinging merely to routine and precedent

Nearly all the misery suffered by humanity has been produced by artificial means Providence did not intend this world to be a place of purgatory for the majority of mankind We are e have made ourselves, and not what evolution intended us to be It is in our power to norantly manufactured for our own discoreatest curse humanity has laid upon itself is that arbitrary interference with the natural development of the mind which is misnamed 'education'

THE END