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2011 April 08
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"At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page
of which book each school child in Italy is studying." |
"Society attacks early when the individual is helpless." |
"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how 'democracy' (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? ... The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be "undemocratic." ... Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma — Beelzebub, what a useful word! — by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. ... We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when "I'm as good as you" has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to over-top their fellows? And anyway the teachers — or should I say, nurses? — will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men." |
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2011 April 07
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"The ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them." |
"I begin by taking.
I shall find scholars later
to demonstrate my perfect right." |
"The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow." |
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2011 April 06
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"We must abandon
the prevalent belief
in the superior wisdom
of the ignorant." |
"Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less." |
"Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession -- their ignorance. |
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2011 April 05
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"The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind." |
"It is precisely because education is the road to equality and
citizenship, that it has been made more elusive for Negroes
than many other rights. The walling off of Negroes from equal
education is part of the historical design to submerge him in
second class status. Therefore, as Negroes have struggled to be free
they have had to fight for the opportunity for a decent education." |
"The Negro has no room to make any substantial compromises because his store of advantages is too small. He must press unrelentingly for quality, integrated education or his whole drive for freedom will be undermined by the absence of a most vital and indispensable element -- learning." |
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2011 April 04
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"Education is unique among consumer products -- when it fails to work as advertised, it's the customer that gets labelled as defective." |
"Bureaucracy defends
the status quo
long past the time
when the quo
has lost its status." |
"It were not best that we should all think alike;
it is difference of opinion that makes horse races." |
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