" Blake said that
"a fool shall never get to Heaven, be he never so holy." It is at any
rate true that ignorance misses the best things in this life If
Englishmen would only believe this, the whole spirit of our education
would be changed, which is much more important than to change the
subjects taught. It does not matter very much what is taught; the
important question to ask is what is learnt. This is why the
controversy about religious education was mainly fatuous. The
"religious lesson" can hardly ever make a child religious; religion,
in point of fact, is seldom taught at all; it is caught, by contact
with someone who has it. Other subjects can be taught and can be
learnt; but the teaching will be stiff collar-work, and the learning
evanescent, if the pupil is not interested in the subject. And how
little encouragement the average boy gets at home to train his reason
and form intellectual tastes! He may probably be exhorted to "do well
in his examination," which means that he is to swallow carefully
prepared gobbets of crude information, to be presently disgorged in
the same state. The examination system flourishes best where there is
no genuine desire for mental cultivation. If there were any widespread
enthusiasm for knowledge as an integral part of life the revolt
against this mechanical and commercialised system of testing results
would be universal. As things are, a clever boy trains for an
examination as he trains for a race; and goes out of training as fast
as possible when it is over.
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