IX. Smith, Jones and Robinson

AT this point there seems to be an interruption from somebody at the back of the hall.—Louder, please! What’s that you say?

“I thought,” says the voice, “that this was to be a discussion of education. It sounds to me more like a monologue. When do we get a chance to talk?”

Oh, very well! If you think you can do this thing better than I can, go ahead. Suppose you tell us why the American public school system failed to work!—One at a time, please. Mr.—er—Smith has the floor. He will be followed in due order by Mr. Jones and Mr. Robinson. And then I hope everybody will be satisfied. Yes, Mr. Smith?

Mr. Smith: “I am one of the so-called victims of our American public school system. I went to grammar school, to high school, and then[Pg 70] to college. You say that is what the system is for—to lead up to college. Well, it worked in my case. My parents were poor, but I studied hard and got a free scholarship, and I worked my way through college by tending furnaces in the morning and tutoring at night. You say college is designed to impart a gentleman’s sons’ education. Well, I got that kind of education. And what I want to know is, what’s wrong with me? I can’t say I feel particularly stultified by my educational career!”

No, no, Mr. Smith, don’t stop. Go right on!

Mr. Smith (continuing): “I will admit that I have sometimes wished I had taken some kind of technical course instead of the straight classical. But I didn’t want to be an engineer or chemist, so why should I? In fact I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to be.... I suppose my education might not unreasonably have been expected to help me understand myself better. And I confess that when I came out into the world with my A.B. I did feel a bit helpless. But I managed to find a place for myself, and I get along very well. I can’t say that I make any definite use of my college education, but I rather think it’s been an advantage.”

Thank you for being so explicit. Mr. Jones[Pg 71] next. Mr. Jones, you have just heard Mr. Smith’s splendid testimonial to the value of a college education—how it has unlocked for him the ages’ accumulated wealth of literature, of science, of art—how it has put him in vivid touch with the world in which he lives—how it has made him realize his own powers, and given him a serene confidence in his ability to use them wisely—how fully it has equipped him to live in this complex and difficult age—in a word, how it has helped him to become all that a twentieth century American citizen should be! Have you, Mr. Jones, anything to add to his account of these benefits?

Mr. Jones: “Your coarse sarcasm, if aimed at me, is misdirected. I never went to college. I didn’t want to tend furnaces, so when I finished high school I got a job. But there’s something to this gentleman’s sons’ stuff. I had four years’ start of Smith, but I feel that he’s got a certain advantage over me just because he is a college man. Now why is that, I’d like to know? I could have gone to college too, if I had cared enough about it. But studying didn’t interest me. I was bored with high school.”

Exactly, Mr. Jones. And some hundreds of thousands of others were also so bored with high[Pg 72] school that even the prestige which a college education confers, could not tempt them to further meaningless efforts. You have explained a large part of the breakdown of our public school system. In theory—but Mr. Robinson wishes to speak.

Mr. Robinson: “Theory—theory—theory! I think it’s about time a few facts were injected into this alleged discussion! The fact I’m interested in is just this: I quit school when I was twelve years old. I had just finished grammar school. I couldn’t go to high school. I had to go to work. What have your theories of education got to do with me?”

Everything, Mr. Robinson! You smashed one theory to pieces, you were about to be condemned to a peculiar kind of slavery by another theory, and you were rescued after a fashion by a third theory. You are, to begin with, the rock upon which the good ship Education foundered. As I was about to say when I was interrupted: the grandiose ideal of a gentleman’s sons’ education for every American boy failed—because there were some millions of American boys like you who could not go to college, and some hundreds of thousands of others like Mr. Jones here, who would not—who did not feel that it was worth[Pg 73] the necessary effort. And these vast hordes of you going out into the world at the age of twelve to sixteen with only the precarious beginning of a leisure class culture, became the educational problem which the last generation has been trying to solve.