Great Britain -- Social conditions; Moral conditions; Social problems
demand: the State must create a new and larger demand. Music would be
an integral part of this scheme of education, and here again we have a
large material ready for organisation.
Any man who has engaged in the work of educating and stimulating the
general public will realise how urgently some such scheme is needed,
and how splendid a service it would render. He will realise also that
the task will be formidable. I do not for a moment conceive the
general public as thirsting for culture. That is very largely due to
the way in which the work has hitherto been done. The recent success
of small but authoritative manuals of science and history, and of
several cheap series of literary works of high value, shows that a
fairly large public responds to every enlightened effort to assist
them. It will become very much larger when the work is organised on a
national scale and conceived as a really important function of the
State. That even then the majority of the nation would rush to the
reconstructed libraries and museums and lecture or concert-halls no
one will imagine for a moment. We do not undo in a few years the
effect of centuries of evil traditions. I am assuming, however, that
these various reforms I am discussing will proceed more or less
simultaneously, and will enormously assist each other. The abolition
of war would release rich funds for educational purposes: the
reorganisation of industry would provide a little more leisure and
capacity for mental recreation: other reforms would give a general
intellectual stimulation. Even now, however, much of this work could
be done. If we think it sufficient that our people remain in a
condition of elementary literacy and half-developed intelligence, if
we fancy that the _race_ will advance because it sets aside a special
caste of scholars for the promotion of culture, we may regard our
actual situation without concern. But if we desire that general
alertness of mind and decision of character which a democratic rule
implies, we cannot be indifferent. Aristocrats justly rail at the
democracy of Athens and Rome; it was an uneducated democracy--literate,
but uneducated, like ours. We need to advance, if we are not to
recede; and the uplifted race of the days to come will honour the
generation that taught men the compatibility of culture and
entertainment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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