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Charlotte Mason in Modern English
Charlotte Mason's ideas are too important not to be understood and implemented in the 21st century, but her Victorian style of writing sometimes prevents parents from attempting to read her books. This is an imperfect attempt to make Charlotte's words accessible to modern parents. You may read these, print them out, share them freely--but they are copyrighted to me, so please don't post or publish them without asking.
~L. N. Laurio
pg 279
Chapter 3 - The Scope of Continuation Schools
[It was customary for students in
Victorian England to graduate at age 14 and enter the job market. A
recent law had just passed in England at the time of this writing (the
preface says 1922), allowing youths who had graduated and started jobs
to have seven or eight hours a week for compulsory education in
'Continuation Schools.' This is Charlotte's plea to use that time to
give youths a real, life-enriching, character-building education,
rather than using the time for more vocational training.]
A hundred years ago, just after the wars with Napoleon were over, there
was a similar re-awakening to the issue of education, like we're
experiencing now. Just like today,
everyone knew that the result of ignorance and wrong thinking was the
war, and that education could be the only cure.
Prussia [Poland/Lithuania]
took the first step. They didn't start with
their little children, but with the youth. Following the philosophy of
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and under the leadership of Karl Stein, a
league of noble youth was created, called the Tugendbund. [Tugenbund is an organization compared to the KKK;
based on the teachings of philosophers such as Voltaire and Rousseau,
it originated under the name Order of the Illuminati. Its original
purpose was to advance secular philosophy and eliminate monarchy,
religion and religious morality. Their goal was for The Order to take
over the world.] Prussia was miserably impoverished, but instead
of looking to the arts to inspire them to great thinking, they focused
on philosophy to teach them principles, and history to learn lessons by
examples. As a result, their country made some progress.
That kind of intellectual renaissance wasn't experienced only in
Prussia, but in all of western Europe. But, either because the time
wasn't ripe, or because the people weren't worthy, what began with high
ideals evolved into more utilitarian concerns and financial gain.
When the interest in 'Continuation Schools' revived, there was some
envy of England's commercial and manufacturing success. By 1829, a
Bavarian politician was already encouraging his people to sow the seed
if they wanted the fruit. In other words, in order to make money in
manufacturing, education would need to focus on vocational training
rather than
broadening the mind.
pg 280
We've all seen how good organization and quality teaching in Munich
have improved manufacturing in German industries. But those with
understanding in Germany are very much aware that 'an education
motivated
by money will become too narrowly utilitarian. It will lose the
ideals that give education the ability to influence character.' Mr.
Lecky said that 'the utilitarian theory is very immoral.'
One man rose above the rest. In 1900, Dr. Kirsehensteiner [?] happened to see an announcement
offering a prize for the best essay on training youth. He wrote an
essay and won the prize. His essay was reprinted as a pamphlet, and
went on to influence opinion and motivate change throughout the west.
In the US, John Dewey and Stanley Hall are its biggest proponents. Dr.
Armstrong [Andrew? Thomas?]
and Sir Philip Magnus lead the way here in England.
And what was the message of that pamphlet? The same thing that had been
said a hundred years earlier in England, France and Switzerland--that a
utilitarian education should be compulsory for everyone. Children and
teens should be 'immersed with the concept of service, and given the
skill to serve effectively.' Imagine the paradise if every person
was skilled, body, mind and soul, to work for society. But what about
the
child himself? What about his
needs and his development?
Apparently it
isn't
important, the person doesn't matter.
It isn't that the leading educational philosophers I've mentioned would
deliberately sacrifice their young people for the economic gain of
their
country. They
believe that giving each person a role and the capability to be of use
will provide him with opportunity and give him a place to belong in the
world. But that's a faulty view of what education should do. We've been
led to believe that we can only know
pg 281
what we experience through our senses. Only what we see with our eyes
and handle will provide the food that our souls need. And it's true
that when a child builds an elaborate model, his mind is involved, but
it's a mistake to think that, since we can see the mind participating
during work, knowledge and work are the same thing. It may be true that
work provides food for the body because a job provides a paycheck. But
there is no such parallel for the mind--physical work doesn't feed the
mind. A mind always working at the same drudgery, never learning
anything new, is like a menial laborer who's only allowed just enough
food to keep his body working.
England's great politicians, such as Gladstone, and Lord Salisbury,
understood this. They made sure to read about lots of other things
besides just politics.
WWI has forced us to realize certain things. such as the readiness of
the adult mind to learn new
things. We were surprised to read that 1500 soldiers applied for a
class with room for twenty students! We begin to see that the minds of
all people in varying circumstances and conditions, need regular
servings of nutritious mind food. As it is, we'll need to make sure
that everyone is provided with the mind food they need. But in the
future, we hope to bring up people to be self-sustaining so they can
feed themselves, not just their bodies, but their minds, too. This will
be done with carefully planned education. We hope to awaken and direct
every person's intellectual appetite [curiosity
and desire to know] so that each person will be able to take
care of his own mind.
We've already discussed what kind of intellectual food the mind needs.
First of all, a good education should make children rich towards God,
and not like the fool Jesus talked about in Luke 12 who was not rich
towards God. A
good education should also make children rich towards society, and rich
towards themselves. I won't belabor the point by observing that moral
bankruptcy has co-existed
pg 282
along with utilitarian education, if not been the outright result of
it.
The catastrophe has been accelerated by the kind of immoral madness
that we've experienced in the past, the kind that are like scenes in
the books Barnaby Rudge and Peveril of the Peak. Yes, we've been swept
off our feet by a bad idea once again, but each instance of our
national lapse in sanity has so far been short-lived because, up until
now, our
education has taught us not to believe lies.
We're no worse than anyone else. If we think well of ourselves as a
nation, it's okay, because national pride and national modesty usually
accompany each other. For instance, during times of peace, we're
hyper-critical of the British working man, but we still prefer him to
the hostile Austrian, or the sullen German that we fought in the war.
We're only critical of our own people because we want them to be
better. We know that a better man
will do better work. We've heard a lot about German efficiency. Maybe
the Germans do a better job at making doors that shut, blinds that
draw, springs that give, and other domestic items whose components make
more difference because of their extreme climate. But those are minor
concerns. Perhaps our failure is that we don't give 100 percent until
there's a major occasion. Give us a big job or a big war, and
then we'll
show what we can do.
But we probably excel in all our various industries. German women
admire the fabric that we make our dresses out of. Well-dressed men
wear English clothes sewn by English tailors. We might buy things 'made
in Germany' because they're cheaper, but the most expensive and desired
goods in Germany are advertised as 'Englisch.'
We need to remember one thing when it comes to educating adolescents.
We tend to put ourselves down and deprecate each other, but, the fact
is, we have nothing to be ashamed of. In manufacturing and industry, we
can compete with anyone. We don't have to look to anyone else
pg 283
to teach us how to do things.
Before I get to the point I wanted to make, let's consider whether the
concept of Continuation Schools has been put down more successfully
anywhere than in Middle Europe. Some of those countries, especially
Germany, have
done everything in their power to urge efficiency with its high wages
and profits. But ever since the Continuation School movement began in
around 1806, the four northwest countries have done things differently.
In Denmark they call their Continuation Schools a more pleasant name:
People's High Schools. Perhaps the schools themselves are more
pleasant, too.
Denmark wasjust as devastated as Germany after the wars with Napoleon.
But
they had experienced some new spirit after freeing their serfs in 1788,
and that spirit prepared the ground for Nicolai Grundtvig, the
poet/historian who became the 'Father of the People's High Schools.'
He said, 'Wherever there's the most life, that's where the victory will
be.' And he saw a way to increase life by making 'Danish High Schools
accessible to young people all over the country.' These schools would
inspire 'admiration for what is great, love for what is beautiful,
faithfulness, affection, peace, unity, innocent cheerfulness, pleasure
and happiness.' Notice that nowhere does his vision even mention
'efficiency.' Yet he assured King Charles VIII that such a school would
provide 'a wellspring of healing in the land' so that he would never
need to fear whether the newspapers chose to praise or blame. The king
listened to him. In fact, he urged an even broader implementation than
the original pamphlet advised. By 1845, the dreamed-of schools began to
be a reality.
We won't trace the complete history of those schools, but by 1903-4,
their schools had over 3000 men and even more women. Wise men embraced
the hope that 'the new Danish
pg 284
school for youth will be fortunate enough to blend all social classes
into one people.'
All of the Danish High Schools bear the influence of their 'Father,'
and their students sometimes sum up his teaching with the three
statements, 'Spirit is might; Spirit reveals itself in spirit; Spirit
works only in freedom.' We can easily trace where these statements came
from. In fact, the entire movement seems to have been very Christian
from its very beginning. And I don't mean Christian in a narrow,
exclusive sense, but in the broad sense illustrated by Simone Memmi's
fresco in Florence's chapel in Santa Maria Novella. Some of the
teachers pictured there as being divinely gifted by God's spirit were
actually
notable pagans. Yet they were still under Divine inspiration. This
seems to me to be an educational concept worth reviving, especially in
these days of utilitarian vocational emphasis. Grundtvig seems to have
understood this concept, although he probably came up with it on his
own. His great hope is that 'above all, some knowledge of literature,
especially the poetry and history of one's own country, will create a
new breed of readers all over the land.'
I can't go into the question of Agricultural Schools. They say that
'the Danish Agricultural School belongs to the Danish people, and must
be just as much based on Christian faith and national life as the
people
are.' In the carefree days before WWI, we all admired the quality of
Danish butter. But did we ever think about the resolve and efficiency
with which the Danish peasants went from making poor butter in their
individual little farms, to manufacture butter of uniform quality in
national dairy co-ops? One leading Swedish professor attributes this to
the High Schools. He said, 'Enriching the soil provides the best ground
pg 285
for seeds to grow. In the same way, training the people's fertile minds
in classic literature is the best way to make them productive. And this
is even true
for farmers. [Thanks to Continuation Schools, ed. by
Sir Michael Sadler, and published by the Manchester University, 1908.]
These are serious words. They deserve our consideration at this moment
when we're also at the brink of a new venture.
The three countries around Denmark watched the experimental schools
with keen interest, and it wasn't long before People's High Schools
sprang up in their countries, too.
The northern High Schools can only operate in the winter [when farming
can't be done], so they
weren't open when I was visiting. But I did notice a couple of things
that I can trace to their influence. For one thing, Copenhagen
impressed me as a city with a soul, unlike Munich. At the Hague, I saw
a craftsman in his work clothes showing paintings in a gallery to his
seven year old son. The little boy listened carefully and looked
eagerly. In the great Delft porcelain factories, young workers
manifested evidence of culture and gentleness in their faces and
manner. But the thing that struck me most was what I saw in a general
store in some remote market in Sweden. The villagers were
peasants. One shop sold cabbages, herrings, cheese and calico cloth.
But in its small-paned window was a shelf tightly packed with paperback
books that hadn't been left alone long enough to get dusty. I couldn't
make out all of the titles, but I noticed that they included books in
French, German and English. I saw thin volumes of Scott, Dickens,
Thackeray, Ruskin, Carlyle and the latest popular literature. It
made a person feel like the village was a slice of heaven. One could
imagine a long winter evening in any home, with one person reading
aloud as the rest of the family did the evening's chores. When friends
meet, or when lovers stroll, they must have lots to talk about. How sad
for
us when we hear that a youth we
pg 286
know and like is quick at making friends, but the friendships never
progress because they never have anything to talk about. Imagine the
little plays acted out, or public readings given by the villagers. I
wish such things would happen in our own country. Then the excitement
of city life wouldn't be such a draw to our young people. A village
with a happy community life sustained by the villagers
themselves will satisfy its people so that they're content to stay.
Our upper and middle classes, whether professionals or not, are also
content--not because of their money, but because of their intellectual
well-being. It's their mental stimulation that makes them 'haves' as
opposed to 'have nots.' You don't have to look far to find the reason
why. Some people make it their business to sow seeds of
discontent in the gaping minds of the masses. A full, satisfied mind
passes by, but an empty mind will grasp at any new notion eagerly. And who can
blame it? A hungry mind will take whatever it can get, and even a
bakeshop owner tends to be lenient with a starving man who steals a
loaf of bread. I'm not hesitant to say that the Labor Unrest that
plagues our times isn't so much the fault of the working man, but of
the
society that hasn't considered that its citizens have hungry minds and
they need the right kind of intellectual nourishment.
I've tried to explain that:
1. The kind of 'education'
offered by Germany's Continuation Schools doesn't positively influence
morals or behavior. To be honest, I haven't noticed that it's improved
the
quality of the goods they produce, either. [ouch!]
2. We are under no obligation
to follow their example. The fact is, our manufactured goods are the
better ones, as evidenced by the fact that Germans will pay higher
prices for British goods.
3. But Denmark and its
surrounding countries excel in the very areas we need improvement.
4. Therefore, the People's
High Schools of Denmark are
pg 287
more worthy to be our model than the Continuation Schools of Germany.
5. They are more worthy
because a broad education that makes knowledge of God its first
priority results in worthy character, right actions, higher
intelligence and
more initiative.
But we can't take someone else's medical prescription. Grundtvig's
Schools are for students aged 18-25, but we're dealing with students in
the more challenging age bracket of 14-18. Also, the Denmark Schools
are boarding schools. Since they're so dependent on agriculture, it
works for most of their young people to live five months of the year
every winter at one of the schools. But that's not the case here. Our
country is mostly manufacturing.
But we're blessed to have been given 7 or 8 hours a week for the
purpose of educating our youth. How shall we adapt Denmark's model to
our situation? How can we make the most of those hours to make the best
use of the student's time? If we take the easiest way, we'll just use
that time to let the student do what he does all week--work 7-8 more
hours for his employer, either directly by showing up at his job and
producing more output, or indirectly by increasing his skill with more
training. But that would be betrayal. No ethical employer really wants
to take away with one hand what it gives with the other. Besides,
employers trust their own staff to train their workers sufficiently. As
I said earlier, it doesn't usually take much training to learn the
skill to do a particular job. It's how the skill is done that matters,
and that takes practice--which means more hours working on the job.
Continuation Schools shouldn't exist to give technical job training.
They should be for the kind of education that doesn't come from
vocational classes. After all, evenings after work will still be as
free as ever for technical classes, or working out at the gym, or other
recreation.
pg 288
If we truly believe that the mind needs its nourishment, and that using
the mind isn't the same thing as feeding
it, then we'll see that this
gift of 7-8 hours a week must be dedicated to things of the mind.
If we resolve to give youths some mental meat to chew on, some real
mind food to digest and assimilate, then we'll find that the flood
gates will be opened. An ocean of possible things to learn will
overwhelm us--and we only have eight hours a week. We'll need to
compromise in one of two ways if we want to make good citizens in such
a limited amount of time. Good citizens need to have rational, solid
opinions about things like law, duty, work, and wages. So one way is to
pour opinions into them by way of lectures from the teacher, so that
they'll
adopt his opinions as their own. With so much to learn and such a
limited time frame, the information will need to be selective. The
youths are 'poured into like a bucket,' and, as Carlyle says, 'that's
not exhilarating to any soul.' In that way, some knowledge is taught,
and teachers and education authorities are satisfied. But the students
leave school at the end of their time not fully satisfied. They're
bored at work, bored in their free time, and they spend their weekends
doing trivial, empty things. They become people who are excited,
instead
of cautious, about the prospect of a strike. If that's the outcome of
our Continuation
Schools, then we will have failed our youth.
That's really the challenge of education for all ages. There's so much
to cover in so many fields of knowledge in order to live intelligently
and with moral insight. The method of learning just one thing, but
learning it so well that you
can handle any kind of knowledge may work on an academic level, but it
won't work if our vision is to 'Enlighten the Masses.'
That method
pg 289
assumes that the mind, like the physical body, can develop in various
areas with the right exercise. But recent educational thought shows
us that the mind is more than that. It's independently active, it
exists in everyone, and it only asks for one thing: nourishment. Feed
the mind what it needs, and it will take care of all the things it
needs by itself. As a well-fed worker is capable of doing his job, a
well-nourished mind can do its job--it can know, think, feel, and make
wise judgments in most cases. The good, noble-minded person is the
one who has been fed with the mental food that's appropriate for him.
This kind of view of education naturally includes religion. It isn't
just because 'his God instructs him and teaches him,' but because all
knowledge falls under three types. First is knowledge of God,
which is gotten first-hand from the Bible. Second is knowledge of
mankind, which comes from history, poetry, stories; the customs of
cities and nations, civics, the laws of self-government and morality.
Third is knowledge of the wonderful world around us. Every youth should
know something about the flowers in the field, the birds in the air,
the stars in the heavens, the many fascinating wonders that happen
every day. Every student should have some knowledge of physics,
although chemistry can be reserved for the few students who are
inclined that way or are headed for a career that needs it.
Here we stand on the verge of that new life for our country that we all
want. We're faced with infinite possibilities on either hand--both the
vast amount of knowledge in the universe, and the incalculable ability
of the mind to learn. One thing we're sure of: we don't have time for
short cuts. Training muscles and experiencing through the five senses
may be necessary, but that's not the way the mind grows. And lectures
from a teacher are rarely assimilated. The only true education is
self-education--it's only when
the student applies his own mind to
learn that the mind is affected.
But we aren't without hope. A promising new field
pg 290
lays before us. Thousands of children even now are showing what
incredible things they can do, and they do those things happily,
without being coerced. They've taken charge of their own education, and
they're hungry to learn simply for the sake of knowing. They want to
know about things in all three categories that I listed earlier.
The fact is, a wonderful discovery has been entrusted to us. This
discovery is the greatest thing to happen to education since the
invention of the alphabet. Listen again to what Coleridge said, on page
106 of this book, about where great discoveries come from. He makes no
distinctions about what kinds of minds receive divine great ideas. In
fact, he doesn't even describe them as particularly great minds. They
were
just 'prepared beforehand to receive' the great ideas. If you'll
forgive me for saying so, I believe that my mind has been prepared for
a great idea. On the one hand, I've been hindered when it comes to
academic achievement, yet, on the other hand I've had some degree of
academic success. I've gradually come to realize that this capacity and
incapacity aren't uncommon. Maybe that's one of the keys to education.
More preparation came to me because of the unusual position I was in to
test and learn to understand the minds of children. I'm anxious to tell
you what my great discovery is because our methods are so simple and so
obvious that people tend to grab them randomly and say, for instance,
that lots of
reading 'is a good idea that we've all used, more or less.' Or
narration 'is a good idea, but not very original.' Yes, it's
true--we've all read, and we know that narration is as natural as
breathing. The value of narration varies in proportion to what's being
narrated. But what we've failed to see until now is that a craving for
knowledge (curiosity) exists in everyone. All people have the ability
to focus their attention without measure. Everyone prefers knowledge in
a literary form. People should learn lots of different things about all
the different
pg 291
thoughts that humans reflect on. But learning can only happen if the
person's mind participates in an active 'act of knowing.' Narration
encourages this kind of actively involved self-learning, and it also
assesses it. Later tests can record what was learned. You might say,
'that's nothing new.' And you're right, I don't think that any natural
law seems very original or innovative. We already think of flying as
pretty routine. Yet, although there may be no astonishing surprises
when we look at natural laws, the results of following them can be very astonishing. We willingly
submit these methods to the test of results.
'Everything isn't for everyone,' was the sad conclusion that Grundtvig,
the Danish patriot and prophet, came to. He was probably thinking about
the impossible obstacles that uneducated people would face with a
limited vocabulary and lack of literary background. So he said
'everything isn't for everyone' in the same way that one of our own
prophets says that higher education is only for the elite. Grundtvig
came to the conclusion that books weren't meant for the masses. So
instead, the youth of his country listened to lectures delivered by
enthusiastic men who had their country's literature and history at
their fingertips and could articulate it with their own personal flair.
A lot of good resulted, but minds spoon-fed from a teacher's lecture
will never be as stable as those who cut and chew their own mind food.
But what if it were for
everyone? What if Comenius's great hope of 'all knowledge for all
people' was in the process of coming true? This is exactly what we've
seen happen in thousands of cases. Even in cases where the children
were mentally handicapped, we've seen that any person can understand
the appropriate book (one that's suited for his age) but the book has
to be in literary (story) form. Students don't need anyone to explain
what the story means to them and their attention doesn't wander when
they're occupied this way. They can master a number of pages so well
after just one reading that they can tell it back immediately, or even
months later,
pg 292
whether it's Pilgrim's Progress,
one of Bacon's essays, or a Shakespeare play. They add their own
individual touches so that no two students tell it back in quite the
same way. A natural side effect of this is that students learn to write
and speak with confidence and flair, and they can usually spell well,
too. This art of telling back is real
education, and it's very
enriching. We all do it naturally. We go over the points of a
conversation or sermon or article in our mind. We're made so that only
those points and arguments that we go over in our mind are the ones we
retain. Haphazard listening and reading might be refreshing and
entertaining, but it's only educational here and there, the random
times that our attention is strongly engaged. When we go over
information in our mind, we don't just retain it, we also come to
understand it better. Every incident stands out, every phrase takes on
new meaning, each link in an argument seems more firmly linked to the
next one. What's happened is that we've taken an active part in the
'act of knowing' and what we read or heard has become a part of us. We
assimilate it by rejecting what our mind doesn't need. Like the famous
men of ancient times, we've discovered 'the knowledge best suited for
people,' and we're surprised to find that people need the very best
knowledge, conveyed in the very best form. Are we like the teachers in
the Bible who were reprimanded because they took away the key of
knowledge? They didn't enter themselves, and they kept those who wanted
to enter from coming in.
Are we doing that today? We understand that people have to participate
in the act of knowing. Nobody can learn without involving his own mind
in the process. Each person has to do his own learning for himself, but
it's as pleasurable and as natural as a bird singing its song. In fact,
the act of knowing is a natural function. Yet we hear of apathy that
prevails in most schools, while right in front us, we see youth
consumed with curiosity, if we can only figure out what they want to
know and how it needs to be taught to them.
pg 293
Humanistic education (learning about mankind and what affects him)
whether lessons are in English or Latin, affects behavior in a powerful
way. Students like knowing these things. They can cover a lot of ground
because they only have to read things once. This method has been used
successfully. If our Continuation Schools are going to do any good [with the limited time they'll have],
they'll have to use this method in some way.
The Parents Union School [PUS, originated 1891] was started for the
benefit of children taught at home. It works like a correspondence
school, with program schedules sent out every term, and exams sent out
at
the end of the term. When the same plan was implemented in the Council
Schools in 1913, the advantages became obvious because it offered the
same curriculum to children of all socio-economic classes. With this
single curriculum, we saw that children from the inner cities in
economically disadvantaged schools did as well as children of
privileged, educated parents who were concerned and involved with their
children's education.
Right now, one of our national concerns is that we have no unifying
shared bond of thought, nothing in common to reflect on. Undoubtedly,
with a lot of reading, some links of common interest could be created.
Thus, the classroom could do as much for our national spirit as the
beginning of baseball season. Our plan works smoothly in Council
Schools. Here's a sample of the work being done successfully and
enjoyably by the highest classes: They read English, French and History
from three or four books; two or three books dealing with citizenship
and morals from various points of view; several works of literature
that parallel the time period being studied in history; three or four
books in nature, physical geography and science; and Scripture (using
mostly the Bible). Every term they have a new schedule of work, often
pg 294
continuing books from the previous term. Students in Secondary Schools,
or learning at home via our correspondence school, stay in Form IV
(about 9th grade) for one year, and the work at that level seems like
it would work for the first year or two of the Continuation Schools,
with a bit of adapting. After that, the more advanced work of Forms V
and VI [about grades 10-12]
could be adapted in the same way. The work isn't like the regular grind
of most school work, so it would be appealing to the students. It would
also provide opportunities for them in public speaking and writing
essays.
Probably the best test of a broad-minded education is the number of
names and proper nouns that a person can use correctly and naturally
when various topics come up. We all remember a character in one of Jane
Austen's novels who didn't know whether the Bermudas were in the West
Indies or not because she had never called them anything in her whole
life!
As an example, here's an uncorrected, alphabetical list taken from a
13-year-old's exam paper. It contains 213 proper names, and all of them
were used accurately, easily and with interest.
Amaziah, Ariel, Ayrshire, Arcot,
America, Austrian Army, Artemidorus, Antium, Aufidius, Auditors,
Apotheosis, Altai Mts., Assouan, Africa, Atbara, Annulosa, Arachnoida,
Armadillo, Albumen, Abdomen, Auricles, Angle, Arc.
Burns (Robert), Bastille, Bombay,
Bengal, Burke, Black Hole of Calcutta, British Museum, Benevolence,
Basalt, Butterfly, Beetles, Blood-vessels, Berber, Blue Nile, Baghdad,
Burne Jones.
Cowper, Calcutta, Clive, Canada,
Colonel Luttrel, Cleopatra, Candace, Coriolanus, Cassowary, Cormorants,
Curlews, Cranes, Calyptra, Cotton grass, Chalk, Conglomerate,
Crustacea, Cheiroptera, Carnivora, Chyle, Centre of Circle, China
Proper, Canton, Cairo, Cheops, Circe.
'Dick Primrose,' "Deserted Village,"
Dupleix, Demotic characters, Ducks, Despotic Government, Doctor
Livingstone,
Deposits, Delta, diaphragm, Duodenum.
England, East India Company,
Economical Reform, Europe, Emperor of Austria, Empress of Russia, Emu,
Eastern Turkestan, Egypt.
pg 295
France, Frederick the Great,
Frederick William of Prussia, Flightless birds, First Cataract,
Foraminifera.
Gadarenes, Gizeh, Great Commoner,
George III, General Warrants, Governor General, Grace and Free-will,
Greek language, Generosity, Gulls, Granite, Grubs, Gastric juice,
Globules.
Huldah, Highlands of Scotland,
Herodotus, Hieroglyphics, Herons, Hoang-ho, Hedgehog, Hydrochloric
Acid, Hydrocarbons, Heart.
Isaiah, India, Influence of light.
Josiah, Judah, Jehosaphat, Jerusalem,
Jonas, Jonah, Jesuits, Jansenists, Japan.
Künersdorf, Kuen Lun Mts.,
Kioto, Karnac, Khartum, Kolcheng, Kalabari.
Lord North, "Lords in Waiting "of
Love, Land birds, Lamellae, Luxor, Lake Ngami, Loanda, Lake Nyassa.
Manasseh, Mongolia, Manchuria,
Madras, Mahrattas, Member of Parliament, Middlesex, Methodists,
Mississippi Company, Maria Theresa, Mummies, Microscopic Shells,
Membrane.
Nagasaki, Nile, Nitrogenous food.
'Olivia Primrose,' Ostriches.
Pharisees, 'Primrose (Mrs.),'
Philosophers. Plassey, Pitt, Prime Minister, Pragmatic Sanction,
Prague, Peace of Hubertusburg, Pity, Puffins, Penguins, Plovers,
Pelicans, Plants, Polytrichum formosum, Peristom, Porphyric,
Puddingstone, Pepsin, Peptone, Pancreas, Pulmonary artery, Pamir
Plateau, Prairies, Pyramid, Portuguese West Africa.
Quilemane.
Rome, Rossbach, Rosetta Stone, Rhea,
Rodentia.
Sea of Galilee, 'Sophia Primrose,'
Surajali Dowlali, Seven Years' War, Silesia, Saxony, Secretary, Storks,
Sandpipers, Seedlings.
"The Task," Treaty of Dresden,
Tullus, Trade Unions, Trustees, Treasurer, Tropical countries.
Ulysses, Ungulata.
Volcanic eruptions, Vermes,
Vertebrate, Villi, Ventricles, Vernae Cavae, Vicar of Wakefield,
Volscians, Vice President.
Wallace, Walpole, War of
Independence, Wilkes, Whitfield, Wesley, War of the Austrian
Succession, Water birds, Wady Halfa.
Yang-tse-kiang.
Zonga, Zambesi, Zorndorff.
pg 296
Granted, this is the work of a Secondary student, but imagine if young
people in a Continuation School who couldn't read all the books in the
schedule, were able to become familiar with perhaps 100 of these kinds
of names in a term. I think we'd be able to satisfy ourselves that they
were receiving a liberal education then. This is just the kind of work
we'd like to see being done by students in Continuation Schools between
the ages of 14-16. Youths aged 16-18 should be ready to handle the kind
of work done by our PUS students in Forms V and VI (grades 10-12).
I'd like to point out that it isn't just the best students who answer
exam questions. Usually, every student answers every question. And I've
only mentioned the more humanities-related subjects, since I figure
that the Head of the Continuation Schools will undoubtedly arrange for
things like Math. In fact, most students have learned enough math
already because of the excellent math training they got in elementary
school, that I think it would be enough for students at Continuation
Schools to practice the skills they already have by keeping pretend
account books.
There won't be any additional cost incurred to adopt and continue the
plan I propose in Elementary and Continuation Schools, beyond the cost
of the books themselves. And students could pay for those themselves so
that they would gradually be building up their own little library of
good books that they've read, understood and gotten familiar with. I'd
like to quote Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Professor at Jena, Germany:
'When we talk about education of the people, we don't mean a special
kind of education. We're not talking about a condensed collection of
our own spiritual and academic knowledge, watered down to be suitable
for the specific urgent concerns of the masses. We're not talking about
a diluted version of real knowledge that we would then condescend to
dispense to the public, like patronizing benefactors. No! Only one
education exists that's common to all of us.' 'We can all unite and
work together to create a spiritual world that transcends the petty
routine of daily life. So then, there could be a real human
education, a true education of the people.'
pg 297
Eucken gives an accurate assessment of the task before us, but he
doesn't offer any way to accomplish it. The only possible way to
accomplish it is with the methods I've described to provide a liberal,
broad-minded education. The method has already been discovered, and
doesn't need to be worked out again. After all, the electric telegraph
didn't need to be discovered twice.
In spite of all our protests about utilitarian education, our method
actually does serve some utilitarian purpose after all. No other
education pays off such dividends as the humanities. Consider this
point. Instability, labor unrest, and discontent among wage-earners is
a serious threat to our social life. They say that you have to act
where you are. And the class of people who are involved where they are,
whether it's in some diplomatic outpost of the British Empire, or an
estate within England, or in Parliament, is the class that received
their education from the Public Schools--the students who received an
education in the humanities. No doubt there will be strong protests
about the deadwood and decadence of these men, although no one can deny
that they're the ones doing our national work. Their faults are many
and obvious, but, still, the public work that's done for our benefit is
mostly done by these men, and they can hardly be called progressive.
Could
there be some mistaken ideas about our fixation on progress? Are we
confusing progress with motion, assuming that wherever we see activity,
there must also be improvement? Yet much of the activity we
see is like the waves of the ocean, always churning, but never going
anywhere. What we really need is the still progress of growth that comes when a tree sends
strong, solid roots downward, and results in abundant fruit growing
upward. This is what progress in character and conduct is like. It
doesn't come from
environmental manipulation, or pressure to conform. It can only come
from the inner growth of ideas received by the mind with deliberate,
active involvement.
It's possible that the limited time provided will only allow a little
bit of these
mind-growing ideas to be offered in Continuation Schools. But a little
goes a long way, as our Public School graduates prove. A final analysis
concludes that it isn't
pg 298
Latin or Greek, or competitive sports programs or athletics, or an
enhanced environment that bring the stability and efficiency we want to
see in all classes of people. It's the humanities, taught and read in
our own language.
I said before that we have a great gift with which to make some
changes: we have seven or eight hours a week. In that time, we might
get in, page for page, or book for book, as much education in the four
years between ages 14-18 as our educated public officials got in their
schools. This education would encompass all of the humanities--poetry,
history, essays, plays and philosophy. I admit, classically
educated students learn it in classic languages while we propose
teaching it in plain English. Yet, no matter how much we may revere
Greek
literature, we have to admit that English literature is second to none.
We can give our youth the thoughts and ideas of the best minds, and we
can ensure that students do their part in applying their attention so
that their own effort bears fruit, resulting in skilled ability, noble
character and proper behavior. With the time we have, we can't make
Rhodes scholars of the students, but those who earnestly desire that
will find
a way to continue their education. If there's any benefit in toiling
over grammar, well, they'll have to forego that. But the inspiration
and joy that come from entering into an intellectual world that has all
kinds of pleasant things to relate to is something that every student
should have. It's like a wellspring of healing, and a fountain of joy.
The value of a cohesive thought bonding the people can't be calculated.
What we want is to give the whole nation a common background of
thought, similar to what students at exclusive Public Schools get.
Those students have read the same books, so they're all familiar with
Pitt, Fox, 'Dick Swiviller,' 'Mrs. Quickly,' the daffodils, clouds and
nightingales that poets have seen, and a thousand other various and
trivial-seeming scenes and sayings that somehow combine
pg 299
to create a backdrop that puts today's current opinions and events
into perspective. Therefore, like the Public Schools, we have our
students reading the same books. They read them just once, but so
intensively, that they never forget them. For the rest of their lives,
phrases and inferences they come across will dawn on them with the kind
of 'light that never touched sea or land.' We hope that the Public
Schools will soon begin teaching some classics in English. Then during
elections, candidates will have a better reason for getting elected
than their own self-interests. During government assemblies, there's a
lack of any literary or historical quotes in English. Is that due to the fact
that
the public can't be counted on to recognize any reference outside of
their old schoolbooks? If that's the case, we can change it once and
for all. Whatever the masses read, the upper educated classes will have
to read, too. Then there will be national peace and unity created by a
common bond of intellectual life.
Goethe said, 'The most dreadful sight in the world is ignorance in
action.' And isn't this the dismaying sight that we see every day? The
common masses rule today, and who can dispute their right? But let's
give them the chance to also be wise in philosophy, so that they can be
fit to rule. It's a hopeful sign that the people themselves are seeing
their lack and demanding the education in humanities that they see as
their salvation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read about England's History
of Education, Middlesex
Paraphrased by L. N. Laurio
Please direct any comments or questions to me by emailing me at cmseries-owner at yahoogroups dot com.
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