BERNARD SHAW ON EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 16837, 12 September 1918, Page 7

BERNARD SHAW ON EDUCATION

I have often ■wondered whether our school system is really a system of education at all. It seems to ms tliat it is only the sequestration and imprisonment of ohildren, eo as to prevent them being a continual nuisance to their parents. That children and adults cannot live together comfortably is a simple fact of nature which must be faced before any discussion of their treatment can advance beyond the present stage of sentimental twaddle. The blood relationship docs not matter. If I have to do my work amid noise and disorder, and break it off repeatedly to console the yelling victim of a broken shin, or to aot as judge, jury, and executioner in a case of assault with violence; if I have to bo medical officer of health, wardrobe mis- ’ tress, sanitary inspector, surgeon for minor operation*, fountain of justice, and general earthly providence for a houseful of children, I shall be so interrupted and hindered in my business, profession, or adult interest which I may puisne that I shall have to choose between being a mero domestic convenience and getting rid of my children somehow. Under these circumstances, a modem humane parent who can afford it always does «jt rid of the children by handing them over m their infancy to servants and later to schoolmasters. The humane parents who cannot afford this let their children run wild. I insist on the word humane, because there is a third alternative open to inhuman people. By simple cruelty they can tame their children to sit still and ask no questions, to make no noise, not to tear then clothes, not to speak until they are spoken to, to be instantly obedient, and to take extraordinary pains to keep their misdeeds concealed (mostly by lying) from their ciders. Many people are eo cons'ituted that an ocearional exercise in breaking a child’s will, punishing it, and seeing it go pale with terror la pleasurable to them. But this is bad for tlie child. Any dog trainer will testify that a spaniel can be spoiled for life by a single act of terrorisatlon, and many human beings have been spoiled in this way. It is no doubt desirable that little boys and girjs should have sufficient self-cc to sit quietly throughout a suitably short, religious service once a week, or to hold their breath whilst swimming under water across a bath: but for most of their time they should be as noisy as nightingales, as reslle-s as squirrels, as curious as monkeys, and quit-e as indifferent to the tidiness of their hair or tho integrity of their clothes. The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off tho parents’ hands for a consideration. Tliat is to say, ho establishes a child prison; engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys; and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process—which la within tho capacity of any fool or blackguard—-by tho sacred name of Teaching. That is what is wrong with our so-called educational system, Every genuine teacher knows it. Every person who understands children and sympathiser} with them, like Madame Montessori, knows it. Everyone who, like the wife of the Master Builder m Ibsen’s play, has a genius for fostering the soula of little children, knows it. When young people are as free to walk out of a class room where lltey are bored by a dull teacher as grown-up people are to walk out of a theatre where they are bored by a dull playwright, the schools will then bo far more crowded than tho theatres, and the teachers fax more popular than the aotore. Until then we shall remain the barbarians wc are at present.—Exchange.