The Story of a Great SchoolmasterWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
The Story of a Great Schoolmaster
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Sanderson, F. W. (Frederick William), 1857-1922; School principals -- Great Britain -- Biography
'Just in the same way from another point of view shall we live for
own advancement, which we are continually tempted to do? It's awfully
annoying if you do certain things and people won't recognise them.
I was pretty heftily annoyed myself at a meeting of the Oxford and
Cambridge Board. Professor Barker--great man--I nearly always agree
with him. Professor Barker. They had made science compulsory for the
school certificate. Bow wow wow. I don't want boys turned aside from
their main purpose to have to get up scraps and snippets of science.
Literary pursuits and so on. I wouldn't have it at any price. Bow wow
wow. Modern languages are compulsory too. By looking at a boy's French
set I can tell whether he can pass or not. Bow wow. Professor Barker
proposed that science should be voluntary. I seconded him, but I said
that languages should be voluntary as well. He didn't see that at all.
Isn't it enough to make a man angry?
'(Half a dozen lines omitted from our note as incomprehensible.)
'Now I am inclined to think that Satan in this Gospel is not intended
to be the Satan of our minds--the prince of evil. He is intended to be
more like the Satan in the book of Job. He is the devil's advocate. He
argues for the other side. For the opposition. He is put up to create
opposition. This may in itself be a valuable thing. I don't know that
I need go further into it. I would just like to tell you this, boys.
Some modern writers, especially Bernard Shaw, have a very high esteem
for the devil. He[1] prefers hell to heaven. So he says. Of course
he hasn't been there, so he can't tell. So he is voted a dangerous
personage because, dear souls, they don't know what he means. What
_he_ means is that heaven as it has been run down to and God as He
has been run down to--everything placid and simple and inactive and
non-creative and sleepy. People don't worship God. They worship (burble
burble). They don't disturb their minds and think about things. That's
what he means. Yes. Man and Superman. Activity of intellect. That's
more or less what he has in mind. He prefers people doing something
outrageously wrong than doing nothing at all. I don't know if it's
true; it's all expressed in Greek thought.
'(Four pages omitted on running with the tide, Lloyd George, the
importance of French in examinations, and the correct way of getting a
true national spirit.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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