"And since the Solomon tradition has been in vogue for quite a long time, do you consider that it has produced educated citizens as yet?"
"More or less," he answered.
"I can't see it," I said. "When nine-tenths of the population of these isles live on the border line of starvation you can't surely argue that they are educated citizens. They are bullied citizens ... and the first step in the bullying of them was the refusal of authority in the shape of the parent and the pedagogue to spare the rod."
"But look here," he interrupted, "come back to the school. Do you think it wrong for a teacher to compel a boy to attend to a lesson?"
[Pg 126]
"I do. If he has to clearly fails to interest him. I would have childhood a garden in which one could wander wherever one pleased; I would abolish fear and punishment."
"And do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that a boy will offer to learn his history and geography and arithmetic and grammar of his own free will?"
"It depends on the boy. Here, again, we come up against the wisdom of the ages. The wisdom of the ages has decreed that these subjects are the chief things in education. But are they? I should imagine that it is more important for a boy to know something about feminine psychology than about Henry the Eighth. He will one day be called on to choose a wife, but he'll never be called on to choose a king. Again why should geography be of more importance than anatomy? A man never wants to know where Timbuctoo is, but he very often wants to know whether the pain in his tummy is appendicitis or heartburn."
