IN DEFENCE OF USELESS
at an
Oxford ought to ground, as being education, but of
KNOWLEDGE
convictions first, that man being hi
learning that was about nine-tentas composed of soul and body, the sa
as commonly understood. field lies all that is covered by terature all the emot tistic, aspiring part of human life: the whole realm of philosophy per, of ethics and of religion
lysis.
shown of virtue ved from pri
quite irrational tabus, are still authoritative among
tribes, the Her fan proved that sexual self-control is respon- sible for a large amount of physical
and mental
and suffering.
useless. It is safe to assume that soul, which unites us to the gods, there is a vast field of the public to whom this daring sal is infinitely superior to the body, terests w! ly was addressed would regard as which we share with the brutes; the scope useful knowledge whatever can and secondly, that since this is so, claim, however vaguely, to be the chief of all the arts of human scientific, and would classify as life must be that which best en useless-leaming, primarily, Latin ables the soul to realise and dis-
Therefore, they say, the old mor Speech, as
ality is discredited; and we must and Greek, and secondarzy, philo- play its superiority.
If frame a new technique of sexual sophy, history, literature and, in Cicero is never weary of telling us, fact, most of the studies which en is the faculty that chiefly raises education is to be limited to the behaviour, based upon the “reali- tered into the old idea of a liberal man above the rest of the animal acquisition of useful knowledge, ties" of sexual life as discovered by creation. It founds cities, makes what is to happen to these higher patient and scientific research into
education.
The pathos of the situation lies laws, controls and directs the minds interests of mankind?
By Philip S. Richards
in brief,
the sexual behaviour, not only of man, but of other mammals, ticularly of the higher apes.
The notion that you destroy or impair the validity an idea by
in this, that we are actually suffer- ing from an excess of useful know- ledge, and a deficiency of ideas a deficiency which can only made good by paying renewed
The incompetence of science to tracing it to barbarous or disgant- tention to those useless studies and wills of men, and
deal with art and literature will ing origins is purely fallacious. It the mother of civilisation. which our reformers are so eager
an unexpressed argument, in which there to abolish altogether. Science has It should hardly be necessary to probably be admitted by all but is fallacious because it is based on
remark that the extravagant em the most obtuse, but since - created or liberated forces over which mankind no longer has ade phasis laid upon eloquence, the is a widespread and growing belief there is no logical connection what
king, was due that men of science are qualified to ever between the premise and the quate control. While you are com Fower of public spe
to the special circumstances of instruct us on points of faith and conclusion.
It is obvious that religion is bas- plaining that nine-tenths of what we teach our youth is useless, the political life in the city state, and, morals, that "useful knowledge market is over-stocked with the negatively to the fact that printing will enable us to decide how we ed on the inference of faith To possessors of useful knowledge; had not been invented. If for ought to live and what we ought to apply scientific methods, then, to “eloquence" we substitute "the believe, it seems high time that the study of religion is as irrational and it is notorious that the ten- dency of scientific progress is to re- power of expression," and think in someone asserted the paramount as it would be to praise or censure Science has no more jurisdiction duce progressively the numbers of terms of literature rather than of claims of useless knowledge, if only the behaviour of the planets. oratory, we shall form a juster to expose a Tallacy and to resist a
over the realm of faith than reli- those required to work the ma
gion over the domain of physics. To take a crucial m chines. Is it not time that, instead idea of what the schools of Rhe- monstrous pretence of vaunting the superiority of the toric were aiming at
The old education, then aimed choose a subject to which the dis active life over the contemplative, we recognised that useful know primarily at developing in its pu- coveries of science are assumed to knowledge is suffering under a ledge, in exact proportion to its pils the command of language. The be peculiarly relevant»- continned success, is going to lead range of useless studies has also al- ject of sexual behaviour.
ways included logic, philosophy and champions of the new morality to its own bankruptcy.
The pity of it is that men and women have been trained, in so far
as they have been trained at all, for work and not for leisure. other words, the fundamental mis- take of modern education, as of mo- dern civilisation generally, is that of sacrificing the end to the means.] The deadly folly of the Fascist or
THE-
21
WORLD GOES BY By "ULYSSES"
nce,
the sub- The
The truth is that the worlder of:
despotism, hardly less absolute and far more mischievous than that exercised by the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. In those days all knowledge had to submit to a theo logical test. To-day not only all knowledge, but every kind of human activity, must be subjected to scien- tific analysis, and in the last resort, to the test of the laboratory. Any- thing that fails to survive these tests, and, still more, anything that
Ewere talking about men has participated in his joys and refuses to submit to them, is con- fdemned as unreal, or scorned was Nazi schemes of national organisa-Waressing for dinner. A logi- sorrows tion is just that they are training cally-minded friend said: "Why not? Given a constant heart, stort ma-fuseless." whole peoples solely for action; it is just as easy to put on after terial, and no bureaucratic intery for grant that waters to take it and it is only too likely that those the evening bath as the
clo-ference, there is no reason why what is most use-
peoples will sooner or later clamour thes." The obvious reply was that such close companionships should ful is primary and supreme. Yet to be led into the action for which ¡it
Wasn't as comfortable when on. ever be severed until the soul at (a little commderation- must make outgrown fit evident that whatever is called they have been trained, since they stiff shirt.
"Ah, but," last is free, leaving it
useful is, by that very description, have never learnt that there is any said, "I don't wear a stiff shirt. better or more intelligent way of
relegated to a secondary place. A thing is useful only in so far as it serves a purpose beyond itself, and urpose which it serves must be superior
employing their mental and physicad Why men should Shirt by life's unresting sea.
cal powers..
I always wear -a- soft
Curiously enough, only yesterday be so keen I turned up a newscutting which to make themselves look like butlers bears upon the same subject. and waiters is not easy to guess. It related how Sir Oswald Mo Correct evening dress always makes Britain's would-be Du a beefy-faced, abdominal man look ing, questioned
Man is the spiritless slave of his own inventions. He claims to have! achieved the conquest of the air. In brutal truth the air has con-more beefy and more abdominal than continuing to quered him, for it has put into his hands a weapon which he can only turn against himself.
What, then, is the remedy? There is no help for it but to change our ideal. We must edu-!
ever. If clean clothes is the iden replied that he had of changing in the evening, what's for six the matter with a clean suit pyjamas?
cate both ourselves and our chiShirts dren, not for power, not even for
of
Black is, of course, a useful lour if one is contemplating a lif partners
Coinage
weful for
our own
might be said,
that it is useful for
ance and improvement
defini-
Life In which case bum life or the good of man, is clearly held to
service, for something less ambi- A crab, says a news item, has There has been much discussion tious, less uplifting, perhaps less been found in the Channel Islands in the Home papers about the new be of easily attainable, but also less dan- with a root of gerous.
bedded in its 7 Seaweed firmly em-farth
The weed falls
so happens that there has over its back like a cloak Its finder they been in the world for a very long is now engrossed with the problem time another, and a totally differ-of whether the appendage should be
theory of education,
of interesting
which are
theory regarded as animal or vegetable.
by a I think the explanation is simple.
One frequently meets men who
so fond of a favourite shirt they obstinately refuse to
nd-If the attachment is form
by life the
Pornes an
Or
ver
cibly
have a wrên
What