Victor Gollancz

“ And then there came the War, and the men and institutions of Europe were put to a supreme test. And the immediate result was that men began to think, began to look about them, and realising the palpable evil of war, began to wonder whether they had not been mistaken in their values and systems. Men soon came to realise that they did not fulfil their entire duty if they followed as nearly as possible in the footsteps of their great-grandfathers, but that as the world moved it behoved them to move; that each man is made with the possibility of every attitude and achievement as seeds within him ”

“ Goodness alone there was at the beginning, and goodness alone there will be at the end. No man is the cause of his own downfall, but he alone as an individual can be the maintainer of his foothold. Individuality in all that concerns the individual, alone can make and keep life clean and sweet. If this individuality could, by such means as education, be established, there would be constituted a uniting force through humanity which could lead it, in the course of time, in the way it should go. ”

“ If you can inspire a boy with a desire to put all things to the test of his own free conscience, you are empowering him to criticise everything you teach—even that very liberty of opinion, a belief in which you have been so anxious to create. But with reactionary propaganda it is quite otherwise. By it a static habit of mind is produced—a habit of mind which, except by way of a mercifully not uncommon revolt, is a pawn in the hands of its present teacher, and that public opinion which in time to come will take its teacher's place. ”

“ A politician may place party above truth, and a diplomatist will conceal it on behalf of his country, but it is the duty of the man of science to attain truth at all costs. In direct opposition to the narrowness of thought which views all subjects through the distorting mirage of party prejudice, stands the absolute freedom of mind of the man of science who stands with open arms to welcome truth...." And Dr. Gregory's moral would seem to be: Eschew politics and devote yourself to science. As if the world could exist without politics! ”

“ 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. ”

“ If political education becomes not merely an experiment but an integral part of the timetable, the staff as a whole, not necessarily all the masters, but all those concerned with what are at present ironically called "the humanities," will be taking a part in it. But how can this be worked? We are here faced with a problem such as none of the ordinary school subjects has ever raised, at any rate in this acute form. Everything depends upon the educational philosophy of the staff. Everything depends upon the extent of their belief in freedom of opinion. ”

“ Now it is, no doubt, difficult for any one who has fallen under the sway of a public school, and who has been so caught up by its fascination as to feel for it a love more compelling than anything in his life, to be certain that personal predilections do not dictate a reply unjustified by intellectual considerations. Yet for all that we give our answer without hesitation. For the multiplication of what may be conveniently, if somewhat unkindly, classed together as "freak" schools, breaks no fresh ground at all. ”

“ As the fire rolls on, devouring all that it meets, humanity on the Road sees its advance, and realises that in the course of a few hours the Universe will be reduced to a smouldering cinder, that its hopes for a future life, where the Road ends, is cut short and never to be realised, and that apparently its former belief, albeit a vague and ill-defined one, in a God who is all-merciful and kind, was altogether an illusion, and merely a cause for false confidence and self-righteousness. ”

“ How far is political propaganda inseparable from political education, and in what respects is such propaganda desirable or undesirable? How can political differences among the masters themselves be made to play a helpful rather than an injurious part? Does the introduction of politics into the curriculum open a way, as the very able reviewer in The Westminster Gazette suggested, for Prussianism in its most insidious form, the conscription of educated opinion? Are the old Public Schools the best medium for political education, or should the new wine be poured into new bottles? ”

“ But with the public school boy all is different. Once he has begun to think in any real sense of the word, his intellectual life develops as joyfully and naturally as does the physical life of the beasts of the field. Freshly and spontaneously, and with no trace of self-consciousness or affectation, he leaps to greet ideas and principles, between which and his own true nature there is a glorious bond of kinship. ”

“ For why is there a danger of our instrument of education being turned into an instrument of obscurantism? Only because there is a danger of our whole society becoming rotten to the core; only because there is a danger of the present cleavage between the two English nations becoming wider and wider, until we have, on the one hand, a class ruling in the interests of money and privilege, and, on the other, a slaving and possibly pampered proletariate. ”

“ No one can surely deny that there is a lack of individuality at present; its chief manifestations, of course, are to be found in hatred, and in the spirit of competition and rivalry; it produces a clash between individual opinions and actions which is so apparent that it cannot be denied, and need not be enlarged upon. But, apart from these more obvious manifestations, this failing has been responsible for the production and continuance of all that is evil in man. Human nature is the foundation of our life, of that foundation every individual is entitled to partake ”

“ If this caveat is borne in mind and honestly observed, propaganda, whether in political, philosophical, or religious teaching, becomes not only defensible but actually desirable. Nothing can be more fatal than to give the impression that it does not very much matter which of several conflicting principles or policies a boy adopts; that there are after all equally strong arguments on both sides, and that the adhesion of the world to one philosophy of life and code of conduct rather than another will make no very vital difference to anybody. ”

“ Again, many working-class reformers—can it be wondered?—not only bring to their task a bitterness against the world which has so misused them and their fellows, but also have inevitably been cut off from those gentle manners of life which have been gradually evolved by the more fortunate to express, however imperfectly, the feeling for grace and beauty which it should be our aim, not to crush, but to extend to all. ”

“ But the objection to propaganda is not to be met by a "Tu quoque." It is one which raises the most fundamental issues of educational theory. To develop, we are told, and not to mould, is the aim of education; and every genuine educationist will eagerly agree. Yet you cannot develop in a vacuum. You must impart some background for the young mind, give it some material on which to work. How, then, can the compromise be effected? How can we inculcate and yet at the same time aim above every thing at the development of an individuality, which may and indeed must, be so very different from our own? ”

“ 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.
Finally, just as the leader and administrator will not desire to misuse his powers, so the education of the rest of the nation will deprive him of his opportunity. For it is only among a people politically uneducated that corruption and intrigue on a grand scale can exist. ”

“ And it will, we believe, bring a new happiness to many parents themselves. As school-masters, our widest experience of parents—not that we pretend it is very wide—is our experience of boys' talk about their homes. Boys speak of their parents with deep affection and respect, as a rule; but so very often they leave an impression that they do not really know them. It is the commonest thing in the world for fathers and sons, without any positive estrangement, to get entirely out of touch with one another during the latter part of a boy's school-time. ”

“ What we want is that every house should become a small community of boys carrying on together absorbingly interesting and romantic activities—a kind of club in which they may forgather and undertake in common the intellectual and spiritual adventure which thus become a part of their individual daily lives.
In this way there will be none of that boredom, that feeling of "having nothing on earth to do or think about," the presence of which is the chief cause impelling a boy to turn to the one thing which at least can provide him at any moment with a temporary excitement. ”

“ And unless a start is made here and now with the political education of Europe—unless boys and girls are made to think politically while their generosity and idealism is still untainted by motives of personal profit, and their powers of vital thought not yet decayed by disuse—these and worse things will happen; love, tolerance, and the independence which is the birthright of men, will all be engulfed in a mad welter of personal, class, and national selfishness. In such a society it really would not matter very much if political education were captured by the State ”

“ The ideal education is undoubtedly an à la carte one, but as this is impossible both physically and because a public school master has not the time to find out how to teach any particular boy, the difficulty is solved if the boy has found out how to learn from any particular master.
A man's life depends altogether on the first morsel of education he receives, so that a governess's responsibility is colossal. And, of course, a competent governess is a far holier thing than any parson's wife. ”

“ For by political education we are creating the only possible safeguard against a misuse of it—we are creating a society which will not desire to misuse it.
And so we would make, if we may, an appeal to all who are considering what their future work shall be, and to those also who may be finding their present work unprofitable—we would urge them to become schoolmasters. We like sometimes to think of a little Greek army of devoted warriors—a band of five hundred young men, who will go into the public schools and there gradually help to set up a system of political education. ”

“ When our life becomes a dream, our sphere is broken into and usurped by the changing of values, shapes, and appearance of things within it. The old familiar forms are transfigured and tampered with, our mistaken or incomplete idea of persons is revealed, and a host of new and inexplicable forms appear; with the result that we are literally bewildered, and instead of regarding things with reference to their influence upon us, we see things as they are in themselves—when we can see at all—and feel what they actually do to us. ”

“ Except for the few, favoured with a productive imagination, the public school can as yet do nothing in this direction. It would be useless, for instance, to crowd a dull, technical science of politics on an already over-amended curriculum. One day it may not be useless. But until a new species of governess can be bred, it is. Of the species in question, I know of one example. There may be more, but not many, though of course they are, I am aware, rapidly multiplying. The only possible children's governess is the governess who attempts to teach nothing except how to learn. ”