Endowed public schools (Great Britain); Political science -- Study and teaching
And as one writes these words; as one sees the ghastly prospect of more
and more State control, more and more authoritarianism and docility,
less and less of the free co-operation which is the very life-blood of
society, one sees also that the only way in which we can prevent the
remedy we have proposed from becoming another instrument in the hands
of our enemies, is simply by adopting that remedy itself. We must
break in on the vicious circle while and how we can. For why is there
a danger of our instrument of education being turned into an instrument
of obscurantism? Only because there is a danger of our whole society
becoming rotten to the core; only because there is a danger of the
present cleavage between the two English nations becoming wider and
wider, until we have, on the one hand, a class ruling in the interests
of money and privilege, and, on the other, a slaving and possibly
pampered proletariate. And unless a start is made here and now with
the political education of Europe--unless boys and girls are made to
think politically while their generosity and idealism is still
untainted by motives of personal profit, and their powers of vital
thought not yet decayed by disuse--these and worse things will happen;
love, tolerance, and the independence which is the birthright of men,
will all be engulfed in a mad welter of personal, class, and national
selfishness. In such a society it really would not matter very much if
political education were captured by the State; and the only way, as it
seems to us, of preventing its advent is by getting up a system of
political education. For by political education we are creating the
only possible safeguard against a misuse of it--we are creating a
society which will not _desire_ to misuse it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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