Arrows of desire : essays on our national character and outlook / by J. S. Mackenzie.

  • Mackenzie, John Stuart, 1860-1935.
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Arrows of desire : essays on our national character and outlook / by J. S. Mackenzie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    240/268 (page 236)
    may at least be cultivated even while the body remains to some extent unformed. Hence the consideration of the best methods for the reconstruction of our educational system is one of the most fundamental of all our problems. In particular, the study of the most satisfactory methods of civic and moral education might well engage our atten¬ tion, even while other problems, perhaps equally important, await solution. I proceed, accordingly, to set down a few reflections on our present methods of education, with special reference to this particular aspect of it. The most typical form of education in England, at least till quite recent times, is that which is given in the great public schools ; and it can hardly be doubted that it has had a good deal to do with the formation and perpetuation of some of the dominant characteristics of our people, especially of the ruling class. Some com¬ ments on this subject by 4 G. A. Birmingham 5 may be worth quoting here, though allowance has to be made for that sardonic humour which one expects in an Irish writer when he is dealing with English affairs. Referring to the state of education about sixty years ago, he writes 1 : 4 The education given at the English public schools in those days was the best in the world. It was indeed likely that a boy would emerge from it with small Latin, less Greek, and a contempt for French. He was almost certain to be ignorant of mathematics and natural science. But if he had any good in him at all, he learned to be a gentleman ; that is to say, one fitted to be a leader of other men, either in battle or in politics. The boy from an English public school made an admirable captain of soldiers. He faced physical pain for himself without shrinking, and gazed on the sufferings of others without nausea. He was inured to suffering. Masters birched their pupils frequently. The boys fought battles with each other in which even the victors were hurt a great deal. Bullying was the sport of the strong ; to be bullied 1 The Bad Times (1908), chap. iii.