Endowed public schools (Great Britain); Political science -- Study and teaching
And not only will politics cease to be a preserve, kept ready for
spoliation by the clever, the pushing, the rich, and the well-born, but
also the very desire in these men so to misuse their citizenship will
cease altogether to come to birth. For political education, properly
so called, awakens political idealism; it teaches principles, arouses
aspirations after public service. The "politician" is a man who finds
in political intrigue the fruitful source of his own advancement; one
who catches at every breeze to further his personal ends. But if
politics had formed the basis of his education; if, while his idealism
was still untainted, he had been led to consider fundamental
principles, and to examine public affairs in the light of them: then
the potential goodness of his political nature would have been so fully
realised, that no vain or mean thing would disfigure his maturity.
"Ah, but 'potential goodness' and 'while his idealism was still
untainted'; there's the rub," we hear the cynic saying. Such criticism
moves us not at all. We had to do during the course of our experiment
with a great number of boys of many different types; one can recall
hardly a case in which, when vital thought had really been awakened,
often after much sweat and agony, virtue was not found to be the
fundamental characteristic of the boy's intellectual nature. But the
teacher must not, of course, rest satisfied until he is certain that
the goal in very truth has been reached; until he is sure that his
pupil has thrown off the weight of carelessness, thoughtlessness, and
prejudice, and that his mind is really awake and is in actual contact
with ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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