CHAPTER FIVE
THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE
I
One of the most pathetic spectacles in the world is that of grown-up persons legislating for the young. Listening to these, we are led to suspect that a certain section of the human race—the legislative section—must have been born into the world aged about forty, sublimely ignorant of the requirements, limitations, and point of view of infancy and adolescence.
In what attitude does the ordinary educational expert approach educational problems? This question induces another. What is an educational expert?
The answer is simple. Practically everybody.
All parents are educational experts: we have only to listen to a new boy's mother laying down to a Headmaster the lines upon which his school should be conducted to realise that. So are all politicians: we discover this fact by following the debates in the House of Commons. So are the clergy; for they themselves have told us so. So, presumably, are the writers of manuals and text-books. So are the dear old gentlemen who come down to present prizes upon Speech Day. Practically the only section of humanity to whom the title is denied are the people who have to teach. It is universally admitted by the experts—it is their sole point of agreement—that no schoolmaster is capable of forming a correct judgment of the educational needs of his charges. He is hidebound, "groovy"; he cannot break away from tradition.