It would be idle for us to pretend that we think it will be easy for him to learn all this. But without this knowledge he is going to be a nuisance—not without a certain charm (indeed, I know several individuals who have remained children all their lives, and they are the most delightful of companions for an idle hour), but still, by reason of incapacity and irresponsibility, an undesirable burden upon the community: unable to support himself, and simply not to be trusted in the responsible relations of marriage and parenthood. We simply can’t let him remain in his present state of ignorance.
And yet, how is he ever going to be taught? You have seen just about how far private enterprise is likely to help him. That man and woman of whom he told us have other things to do besides teach him. And if he is turned over to special private institutions, we have no guarantee that they will not take advantage of his helplessness, keep him under their control and rob him of freedom of movement for a long term of years, set him to learning a mass of fabulous or irrelevant information, instil in him a fictitious sense of its value by a system of prizes and punishments, and finally turn him out into our world no better prepared to take his proper part in it than he was before; and thus, having wasted his own time, he would have to waste ours by compelling us to teach him all over again.
In fact, the difficulty of dealing with him appears so great that I am moved to make the statesmanlike proposal—never before, I believe, presented to the public—of passing a law which will prevent this kind of undesirable immigration altogether.
Shall we abolish the Child?
The only other reasonable alternative is for us to undertake this difficult and delicate business of education ourselves—assume as a public responsibility the provision of a full opportunity for this helpless, wistful, stubborn little barbarian to find out about the world and about himself. Well, shall we do that?
Let us not allow any false sentimentality to affect our decision....
The vote seems to be in favour of giving him his chance. Very well!