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a treatise on parents and children(父母与子女专题研究)-第14部分

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continual     outcry    against   the   sacrifice   of   mental    accomplishments        to 

athletics。     In    other    words    a   sacrifice   of   the   professed     object   of 

compulsory   education   to   the   real   object   of   voluntary   education。       It   is 

assumed that this   means that people  prefer bodily to   mental culture;   but 

may it not mean that they prefer liberty and satisfaction to coercion and 

privation。     Why is it that people who have been taught Shakespear as a 

school subject loathe his plays and cannot by any means be persuaded ever 

to open his works after they escape from school; whereas there is still; 300 

years after his death; a wide and steady sale for his works to people who 

read his plays as plays; and not as task work?              If Shakespear; or for that 

matter; Newton and Leibnitz; are allowed to find their readers and students 

they   will   find   them。   If   their   works   are   annotated   and   paraphrased   by 

dullards; and the annotations and paraphrases forced on all young people 

by imprisonment and flogging and scolding; there will not be a single man 

of   letters  or   higher   mathematician      the   more    in  the  country:    on    the 

contrary  there   will   be   less;   as   so   many  potential   lovers   of   literature   and 

mathematics        will    have    been     incurably     prejudiced      against    them。 

Everyone who is conversant with   the class in which child imprisonment 

and   compulsory   schooling        is   carried  out   to   the   final   extremity   of   the 

university degree knows that its scholastic culture is a sham; that it knows 

little about literature or art and a great deal about point…to…point races; and 

that   the  village   cobbler;   who    has   never   read   a  page   of  Plato;   and   is 

admittedly      a  dangerously      ignorant    man    politically;   is  nevertheless     a 

Socrates     compared      to  the  classically   educated    gentlemen     who    discuss 



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politics in country houses at election time (and at no other time) after their 

day's earnest and skilful shooting。        Think of the years and years of weary 

torment   the   women   of   the   piano…possessing   class   have   been   forced   to 

spend over the keyboard; fingering scales。           How many of them could be 

bribed to attend a pianoforte recital by a great player; though they will rise 

from sick beds rather than miss Ascot or Goodwood? 

    Another familiar fact that teaches the same lesson is that many women 

who have voluntarily attained a high degree of culture cannot add up their 

own housekeeping books; though their education in simple arithmetic was 

compulsory;   whereas   their   higher   education   has   been   wholly   voluntary。 

Everywhere we find the same result。           The imprisonment; the beating; the 

taming     and    laming;    the   breaking    of   young     spirits;  the   arrest  of 

development; the atrophy of all inhibitive power except the power of fear; 

are   real:  the   education   is   sham。    Those   who   have   been   taught   most 

know least。 



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                                    Antichrist 



     Among   the   worst   effects   of   the   unnatural   segregation   of   children   in 

schools and the equally unnatural constant association of them with adults 

in the family is the utter defeat of the vital element in Christianity。              Christ 

stands in the world for that intuition of the highest humanity that we; being 

members   one   of   another;   must   not   complain;   must   not   scold;   must   not 

strike; nor revile nor persecute nor revenge nor punish。                Now family life 

and school life are; as far as the moral training of children is concerned; 

nothing but the deliberate inculcation of a routine of complaint; scolding; 

punishment; persecution; and revenge as the natural and only possible way 

of dealing with evil or inconvenience。             〃Aint nobody to be whopped for 

this   here?〃    exclaimed     Sam   Weller    when     he  saw   his   employer's     name 

written up on a stage coach; and conceived the phenomenon as an insult 

which reflected on himself。           This exclamation of Sam Weller is at once 

the   negation   of   Christianity   and   the   beginning   and   the   end   of   current 

morality; and so it will remain as long as the family and the school persist 

as we know them:          that is; as long as the rights of children are so utterly 

denied that nobody will even take the trouble to ascertain what they are; 

and   coming   of   age   is   like   the   turning   of   a   convict   into   the   street   after 

twenty…one years penal servitude。 Indeed it is worse; for the convict may 

have     learnt   before   his   conviction    how     to  live  in   freedom     and   may 

remember how to set about it; however lamed his powers of freedom may 

have become through disuse; but the child knows no other way of life but 

the slave's way。 Born free; as Rousseau says; he has been laid hands on by 

slaves from the moment of his birth and brought up as a slave。                  How is he; 

when he is at last set free; to be anything else than the slave he actually is; 

clamoring for war; for the lash; for police; prisons; and scaffolds in a wild 

panic   of   delusion   that   without   these   things   he   is   lost。 The   grown…up 

Englishman   is   to   the   end   of   his   days   a   badly   brought…up   child;   beyond 

belief   quarrelsome;   petulant;   selfish;   destructive;   and   cowardly:        afraid 

that the Germans will come and enslave him; that the burglar will come 

and   rob   him;   that   the   bicycle   or   motor   car   will   run   over   him;   that   the 

smallpox will attack him; and that the devil will run away with him and 



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empty him out like a sack of coals on a blazing fire unless his nurse or his 

parents or his schoolmaster or his bishop or his judge or his army or his 

navy   will   do   something   to   frighten   these   bad   things   away。       And   this 

Englishman; without the moral courage of a louse; will risk his neck for 

fun fifty times every winter in the hunting field; and at Badajos sieges and 

the like   will   ram  his   head into   a  hole  bristling   with   sword   blades   rather 

than be beaten in the one department in which he has been brought up to 

consult   his   own   honor。     As   a   Sportsman   (and   war  is   fundamentally  the 

sport of hunting and fighting the most dangerous of the beasts of prey) he 

feels   free。   He   will   tell   you   himself   that   the   true   sportsman   is   never   a 

snob; a coward; a duffer; a cheat; a thief; or a liar。 Curious; is it not; that he 

has not the same confidence in other sorts of man? 

     And     even    sport   is  losing   its  freedom。      Soon     everybody      will   be 

schooled; mentally and physically; from the cradle to the end of the term 

of   adult   compulsory       military   service;    and   finally   of  compulsory      civil 

service lasting until the age of superannuation。               Always more schooling; 

more compulsion。          We are to be cured by an excess of the dose that has 

poisoned us。       Satan is to cast out Satan。 



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                             Under the Whip 



     Clearly  this   will   not   do。   We   must   reconcile   education   with   liberty。 

We   must   find   out   some   means   of   making   men   workers   and;   if   need  be; 

warriors;     without    making     them    slaves。    We     must    cultivate   the   noble 

virtues   that   have   their   root   in   pride。 Now   no   schoolmaster   will   teach 

these   any   more   than   a   prison   governor   will   teach   his   prisoners   how   to 

mutiny and escape。          Self…preservation forces him to break the spirit that 

revolts against him; and to inculcate submission; even to obscene assault; 

as a duty。      A bishop once had the hardihood to say that he would rather 

see England free than England sober。               Nobody has yet dared to say that 

he    would    rather   see   an   England     of  ignoramuses      than    an  England     of 

cowards and slaves。          And if anyone did; it would be necessary to point 

out that the antithesis is not a practical one; as we have got at present an 

England of ignoramuses who are also cowards and slaves; and extremely 

proud of it at that; because in school they are taught to submit; with what 

they    ridiculously     call   Oriental    fatalism    (as  if  any   Oriental    has   ever 

submitted more helplessly and sheepishly to robbery and oppression than 

we Occidentals do); to be driven day after day into compounds and set to 

the   tasks   they   loathe   by   the   men   they   hate   and   fear;   as   if   this   were   the 

inevitable destiny of mankind。            And naturally; when they grow up; they 

helplessly exchange the prison of the school for the prison of the mine or 

the workshop or the office; and drudge along stupidly and miserably; with 

just enough gregarious instinct to turn furiously on any intelligent person 

who     proposes     a  change。     It  would     be  quite   easy   to  make    England     a 

paradise;   according   to   our   present   ideas;   in   a   few   years。    There   is   no 

myste
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