The Higher Education

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 5, Issue 3, 1 September 1926, Page 42

The Higher Education

It is often a matter for doubt among people of average intelligence whether education is quite so beneficent in its results as its protagonists would have us believe, and whether the many millions of pounds spent on it annually arc justified by the results. We have, on the one hand, an army of bright brains, who spend their lives in discovering all sorts of quaint things, which do not serve any such useful purpose as to lower the price of women’s dresses or raise the quality of men’s beer, while, on the other hand, is another army of less remarkable but equally dogged brains who spend their lives in trying to drive knowledge into the skulls of young human animals. Let us take these two in turn and try to discover whither the learned are leading us. The professors and scientists and specialists and statisticians first. One professor has just decided that in a hundred years hence there will be nothing in the world to laugh at. From which, we may assume, that by then there will be no professors. Another, who lives in America, has discovered that typhoid germs can live for ninety-six days on a dollar bill. This is a feat that would beat even that thrifty racethe Scots. It also demonstrates what I had long suspected, namely, that a dollar bill of the average character is quite a meaty proposition. Another expresses the conviction that the Ten Commandments were never meant to bind the Gentiles, but only the Jews. This idea, however, is not new. It has been the guiding spirit of the Gentiles for many a century. ■ A learned relative of mine, Uncle -*■ Abe, specialises in many subjects, but be keeps methodically to each of them in turn. The subject of teeth is the latest to attract his attention. He predicts that mankind will be toothless in about thirty to sixty thousand years. You may say that this is rather unnecessary information. But I am sure that Uncle Abe’s wish is to broadcast it without delay, so that the dentists will have plenty of time to learn another trade, and the toothpick factories will be able to get rid of their stocks. A pet theory of Abraham's is that civilisation ought to regard thieves and murderers and triplets and twins as blessings in disguise. All of these four are most interesting topics of general talk, and when one realises the amount spent annually on police and prisons, and safes and locks, and cash registers, and cradles and oceans of milk and baby-clothing and doctors and nurses one can realise how sound is Abraham’s philosophy. Abe has lots of critics. “Instead

of talking drivel about teeth and twins and thieves and things he knows nothing about,” says one, “why doesn’t the old idiot invent something to give us more sunshine and less rain and cold and worry?” Well, I understand that he has invented an anaesthetic ray which beams upon you long after the operation—long enough, in fact, to cover the period of paying the surgeon’s bill. What could humanity expect more? A nolher scientific big-wig says he has discovered that hair grows on deadheads ; not the theatrical variety, but the heads of dead folk. Now, this is just the sort of soothing syrup that cannot fail to gladden the hearts of all bald persons who hear about it. I read the other day that scientists have proved—at least to their own satisfaction — that the greatest depth of the ocean is six miles. This will be found of real value to all those poor fish who want to enjoy a spell of peace and rest away from connubial and other enemies who want to catch them. A professor with a passion for studying the ways of small fry declares that fleas can go without food for two weeks. From the look of most professors I don’t blame the fleas. All other kinds of people are agreed that, if fleas can fast, they won’t. Another professor, who has been engaged in measuring ancient and modern skulls, states that our faces are growing longer. The ancients, of course, had better weather and no income-tax. /Ane daring statistician has even entered the realm of woman. But being a woman herself she, perhaps, has a right there. She says that “the average girl has a vocabulary of only three hundred words." Well, 1 bow to the expert always. But if this one is right, 1 will say that the average girl has the biggest turnover on the smallest stock of goods in the whole world. According to an eminent doctor, there arc two million sweat glands on the surface of the human body. This statement leaves us cold, except on a really hot day. But at least it rouses our admiration. The doctor must have given up all his patients in order to find the time to make the count. What patience! It is recognised that farmers arc a family of grumblers. Another insect pest has been added to their troubles. Won't some biologist give the. farmers something to cheer them, by producing an insect which eats nothing but weeds? i must say 1 think that some of these specialists are decidedly dangerous to the community. They spend most of their time inciting strange and nasty bugs to breed in

their millions in order to prove some theory or other. It must be, admitted, however, that others are practically harmless. All they do is to play about with explosives, poison gases, and other lethal machinery that are used outside the laboratory only about once in a century. 'pVTow for a look at the results achieved by the other army of bright brains: the gallant ranks of men and women who wage daily war (eight months of the year) against the defence of the human young with the weapons of Latin, logarithms, Greek, geology, and tons more junk of similar value. The human young reply to the attack with missiles such as these : "A relative pronoun is a family pronoun, such as ‘mother,’ ‘brother,’ ‘aunt’.” “Oliver Twist had a very good effect, for people saw the workhouses in a different limelight.”

“Degrces of comparison are : had, very sick, dead." "Shakespeare was the author of O inlet." "The plural of ox is oxo.” “Crewe is the biggest conjunction in England.” "Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. who, it seems, lived up to her name, and had her own way and gave Shakespeare a hot time of it.” “Rhubarb is a kind of celery gone bloodshot.” “The cow gives us milk. A young cow is called a calf, and gives us jelly.” “The Prince of Wales uses a different title when he travels in Congo.” To conclude this commentary on the question of “Whither are the learned leading us ?” in a fitting manner, one need but say ars cclarc artem. or (if you prefer it) some folk who are reputed clever are more than clever at concealing it.