Fors Clavigera (Volume 4 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 4 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
Now here is just one of the pieces of practical geometry and dynamics
which a modern schoolmaster, exercising his pupils on the positions of
letters in the word Chillianwallah, would wholly despise. Whereas, in
St. George’s schools, it shall be very early learned, on a square and
diagonal of actual road, with actual loaded wheelbarrow—first
one-wheeled, and pushed; and secondly, two-wheeled, and pulled. And
similarly, every bit of science the children learn shall be directly
applied by them, and the use of it felt, which involves the truth of it
being known in the best possible way, and without any debating thereof.
And what they cannot apply they shall not be troubled to know. I am not
the least desirous that they should know so much even of the sun as
that it stands still, (if it does). They may remain, for anything I
care, under the most simple conviction that it gets up every morning
and goes to bed every night; but they shall assuredly possess the
applicable science of the hour it gets up at, and goes to bed at, on
any day of the year, because they will have to regulate their own
gettings up and goings to bed upon those solar proceedings.
Well, to return to Regent Street. Being afoot, I took the complex
diagonal, because by wise regulation of one’s time and angle of
crossing, one may indeed move on foot in an economically drawn line,
provided one does not miss its main direction. As it chanced, I took my
line correctly enough; but found so much to look at and think of on the
way, that I gained no material advantage. First, I could not help
stopping to consider the metaphysical reasons of the extreme gravity
and self-abstraction of Archer Street. Then I was delayed a while in
Prince’s Street, Soho, wondering what Prince it had belonged to. Then I
got through Gerrard Street into Little Newport Street; and came there
to a dead pause, to think why, in these days of division of mechanical
labour, there should be so little space for classification of
commodities, as to require oranges, celery, butchers’ meat, cheap
hosiery, soap, and salt fish, to be all sold in the same alley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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