The Curse of Education

by Harold Edward Gorst

The political opinion to which the majestic alderman or the classically-trained savant gives such profound utterance is the opinion, not of himself, but of some poor devil who knows nothing of the blessings of a university education, but who writes in a garret, or in a dingy office off Fleet Street, to earn his bread and cheese.

Its value or political insight need not be disparaged on that account. I would trust it a thousand times rather than I would trust the opinion—if such a thing should have any existence—of the average educated man whose brains have been jellified at school or college. The point is not the value of the humble scribe's opinion, however, but the fact that a man, of what would be called inferior educational attainments, has to be engaged to do mental work that cannot be performed by the brains of people who have enjoyed all the advantages that a first-rate education is supposed to confer.

The vote of the working-man is scarcely more unintelligently applied at election times than the vote of the educated man. On the contrary, the former may be said to think independently, or at least to use an independent instinct, whilst the latter is contented to believe in the iniquity of one party or the virtue of another, according to the opinion of the man in the garret. The working man wants beer, and he knows it. The China question, the war in South Africa, the housing of the working classes, the great education controversy—everything is beer to him. It is the Government who cheapen beer, or who regulate the percentage of arsenic to be used in brewing, that command his support—not Ministers who promise to maintain British supremacy in the Far East, or who put forward an attractive programme of domestic legislation.

The natural consequence of this wholesale production of dummy members of society is that the strings of government are really pulled by the intelligent few. Whatever the external constitution of Great Britain may be, the real power does not lie with Parliament or with the Executive, but is invariably wielded by one or more men of commanding ability.

Nominally, the administration is in the hands of the social aristocracy, that is to say, of a few peer families and their innumerable relations. Whichever of the two great parties in the State may happen to be in power, the Government is invariably exploited by members of the peer class, who practically divide the spoils of office amongst themselves and their immediate entourage.

Although, however, the English nobility manage to usurp all the offices of State, and to secure all the plums for themselves, it is not they who really govern the country. No doubt the landed aristocracy are politically the most fit to govern. They have no commercial or industrial interests that may bring corrupt and undesirable influences into public life. But they are unfitted for the position they ought to occupy by a system of education that manufactures mediocrity, and stifles the very qualities of imaginativeness and initiative which are indispensable to sound statesmanship.

What is the inevitable result?

The self-made man, with all his splendid intellectual faculties developed, with his independence of judgment, and his acquired habit of thinking for himself instead of leaning on precedent and borrowed wisdom, rides the dummy Government class with whip and spur. He lays on the lash here and digs in the rowels there, goading on his steed in any direction that chances to suit his purpose. He naturally places personal ambition in front of national expediency, because his political career is necessarily a constant fight against odds. Either he must rise superior to the peer combination, as Disraeli succeeded in doing after a struggle unparalleled in the annals of political history, or he will be crushed by it.

But the necessities of his position render the self-made man a particularly undesirable element in the administration of public affairs. During the course of his successful upward struggle he has, in nine cases out of ten, entangled himself in commercial or industrial interests from which it is difficult or impossible for him to dissociate himself. By this means, and through the necessarily adventurous character of his political career, he can scarcely avoid becoming, however undeserved the imputation may be, an object of suspicion. And when once distrust of this kind has been allowed to permeate through our public life, the degeneration of parliamentary government must follow.

Disraeli spent the greater part of his political life in manœuvring for the premiership. When his object had been successfully attained, all his great qualities were turned to the advantage of the State. But up to that point he was compelled, in order to survive in his colossal struggle against the aristocratic element in politics, to play for his own hand.