02-28-2005, 01:31 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Impact Of Democracy On Education
( Extract from Arnold J Toynbee's book, A Study of History, abridged by Somervell.)
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     One of the greatest social changes that has been brought about by the advent of democracy has been the spread of education. In the progressive countries a system of universal compulsory, gratious instruction has made education the birthright of every child-- in contrast to the role of education in the pre-Democratic Age, when it was the monopoly of a previleged minority. This new educational system has been one of the principal social ideals of every state that aspires to an honorouble position in the modern world-comity of nations.Â
     When universal education was first inaugurated it was greeted by rnedthe liberal opinion of the day as a triumph of justice and enightenment which might be expected to usher in a new era of happiness and well-being for mankind. But these expectations can now be seen to have left out of account the presence several stumbling-blocks on this broad road to the millennium, and in this matter, as so often happens, it has been the unforeseen factors that have proved the most important.
     <b>One stumbling-block has been the inevitable impoverishment in the results of education when the process is made available for " the masses " at the cost of being divorced from its traditional cultural back-ground. </b>The good intentions of Democracy have no magic power to perform the miracle of loaves and fishes. Our mass-produced intellectual pabulum lacks savour and vitamins. A second stumbling-block has been the utilitarian spirit in which the fruits of education are apt to be turned to account when they are brought within everybody's reach. Under a social regime in which education is confined to those who have inherited a right to it as a social previlege or have proved a right to it by their exceptional gifts of industry and intelligence , education is a pearl cast before swine or a pearl of great price which the finder buys at the cost of all that he has. In neither case is it a means to an end: an instrument of wordly ambition or of a frivolous amusement. The possibility of turning education to account as a means of amusement for the masses-- and of profit for the enterprising persons by whom the amusement is purveyed-- has only arisen since the introduction of universal elementary education; and this new possibility has conjured up a third stumbling-block which is the greatest of all. The bread of universal education is no sooner cast upon the waters than a shoal of sharks arises from the depths and devours the children's bread under the educator's very eyes. In the educational history of England the dates speak for themselves. The edifice of unversal elementary education was, roughly speaking, completed by Foster's Act in 1870; and the yellow press was invented some twenty years later-- as soon, that is, as the first generation of children from the national schools had acquired sufficient purchasing-power--by a stroke of irresponsible genius which had divined that the educational philanthropist's labour of love could be made to yield a royal profit to a press-lord.
    These disconcerting reactions to the impact of Democracy upon education have attracted the attention of the rulers of modern would-be totalitarian national states. If press-lords could make millions by providing idle amusement for the half-educated, serious states-men could draw, not money perhaps, but power from the same source. The modern dictators have deposed the press-lords and substituted for crude and debased system of state propaganda. The elaborate and ingenious machinery for the mass-enslavement of semi-educated minds, invented for private profit under British and American regimes of laisser fare, has been simply taken over by the rulers of the states who have employed these mental appliances, reinforced by the cinema and radio ( prediction made as per conditions in 1946 when this book was written--now after 60 years and the profuse and easy access to television and telephone, another guesswork can be made-kvr), for their own sinister purposes. After Northcliff, Hitler-- though Hitler was not the first in his line.
    <b>Thus in countries, where democratic education has been introduced, the people are in danger of falling under an intellectual tyranny, engineered either by private exploitation or by public authority. </b>If the people's souls are to be saved, the only way is to raise the standard of mass-education to a degree at which its recipients will be rendered immune, against at any rate, the grosser forms of exploitation and propoganda; and it need hardly be said, that this is no easy task. Happily, there are certain disinterested and effective educational agencies grappling with it in our Western World today-- such agencies as Worker's Educational Association and the British Broadcasting Corporation in Great Britain and the extra-mural activities of universities in many countries.
  Â
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( Extract from Arnold J Toynbee's book, A Study of History, abridged by Somervell.)
-----------------------
     One of the greatest social changes that has been brought about by the advent of democracy has been the spread of education. In the progressive countries a system of universal compulsory, gratious instruction has made education the birthright of every child-- in contrast to the role of education in the pre-Democratic Age, when it was the monopoly of a previleged minority. This new educational system has been one of the principal social ideals of every state that aspires to an honorouble position in the modern world-comity of nations.Â
     When universal education was first inaugurated it was greeted by rnedthe liberal opinion of the day as a triumph of justice and enightenment which might be expected to usher in a new era of happiness and well-being for mankind. But these expectations can now be seen to have left out of account the presence several stumbling-blocks on this broad road to the millennium, and in this matter, as so often happens, it has been the unforeseen factors that have proved the most important.
     <b>One stumbling-block has been the inevitable impoverishment in the results of education when the process is made available for " the masses " at the cost of being divorced from its traditional cultural back-ground. </b>The good intentions of Democracy have no magic power to perform the miracle of loaves and fishes. Our mass-produced intellectual pabulum lacks savour and vitamins. A second stumbling-block has been the utilitarian spirit in which the fruits of education are apt to be turned to account when they are brought within everybody's reach. Under a social regime in which education is confined to those who have inherited a right to it as a social previlege or have proved a right to it by their exceptional gifts of industry and intelligence , education is a pearl cast before swine or a pearl of great price which the finder buys at the cost of all that he has. In neither case is it a means to an end: an instrument of wordly ambition or of a frivolous amusement. The possibility of turning education to account as a means of amusement for the masses-- and of profit for the enterprising persons by whom the amusement is purveyed-- has only arisen since the introduction of universal elementary education; and this new possibility has conjured up a third stumbling-block which is the greatest of all. The bread of universal education is no sooner cast upon the waters than a shoal of sharks arises from the depths and devours the children's bread under the educator's very eyes. In the educational history of England the dates speak for themselves. The edifice of unversal elementary education was, roughly speaking, completed by Foster's Act in 1870; and the yellow press was invented some twenty years later-- as soon, that is, as the first generation of children from the national schools had acquired sufficient purchasing-power--by a stroke of irresponsible genius which had divined that the educational philanthropist's labour of love could be made to yield a royal profit to a press-lord.
    These disconcerting reactions to the impact of Democracy upon education have attracted the attention of the rulers of modern would-be totalitarian national states. If press-lords could make millions by providing idle amusement for the half-educated, serious states-men could draw, not money perhaps, but power from the same source. The modern dictators have deposed the press-lords and substituted for crude and debased system of state propaganda. The elaborate and ingenious machinery for the mass-enslavement of semi-educated minds, invented for private profit under British and American regimes of laisser fare, has been simply taken over by the rulers of the states who have employed these mental appliances, reinforced by the cinema and radio ( prediction made as per conditions in 1946 when this book was written--now after 60 years and the profuse and easy access to television and telephone, another guesswork can be made-kvr), for their own sinister purposes. After Northcliff, Hitler-- though Hitler was not the first in his line.
    <b>Thus in countries, where democratic education has been introduced, the people are in danger of falling under an intellectual tyranny, engineered either by private exploitation or by public authority. </b>If the people's souls are to be saved, the only way is to raise the standard of mass-education to a degree at which its recipients will be rendered immune, against at any rate, the grosser forms of exploitation and propoganda; and it need hardly be said, that this is no easy task. Happily, there are certain disinterested and effective educational agencies grappling with it in our Western World today-- such agencies as Worker's Educational Association and the British Broadcasting Corporation in Great Britain and the extra-mural activities of universities in many countries.
  Â
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