THE DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION.

Evening Star, Issue 14053, 7 May 1909, Page 2

THE DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION.

Recently before the Manchester Principal Teachers’ Association. Judge Parry read a paper from which we 'lake the following highly original and striking opinions : For my part,..! have never made any secret of the fact that from my earliest days I disliked education, and had a natural and v I, hope, not unhealthy distrust of schoolmasters. Personally, [ have always regarded it as a matter of congratulation that I escaped trnm school at a comparatively early ago. Aly view of the ideal system of education is-much'the-same as Air Weller Senior's. \on will remember that he said to Air Pickwick about his son Sam : ‘■l took a great deal of pains with bis eddication, sir! I let him run in the streets when he was very young, and snift for hisself. It’s the only way to make a boy sharp, sir.” 'lhe bad boy who gets into trouble, and has the good fortune to be put in a reformatory, and there learns a trade, has a much better i-hariee of a useful and pleasurable life than the good boy who gains a County Council prize in geography. Teachers should never be chosen for any acadenijc. degree . they possess, for every day it becomes more certain that the man who obtains these degrees is the man who has deliberately failed to make himself a master of any one subject. It is no use teaching young people any subject unless you see that in afterlife they are to have opportunities of using their attainments for the benefit of the State. And I want to see a race of schoolmasters not only better paid—but worth more. Education committees should choose a good man, or woman to be bead of a school, and then leave him or her done. The inspectors should he pensioned—and turned off on the golf-links.