The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1921-01-17

Ignorance OF the Educated.
"The Curse OF Education"
Franklin's Education.
HE Wanted knowledge.
by ARTHUR BRISBANE
tcepyrixht, iSzi.D

Snesterton Is IN AmeIiSay ieSseA-
ing on the Ignorance of the edu-
Gated" among other topics. There
is material for long lectures In
that subject.
The only hopeless ignorance is
that Of the educated man, or rath-
er, the man that considers himself
educated because his father paid
TO have a few ready-msde facts
and opinions stuffed into him, as
a pigeon stuffs food down the
throat Of its young.
Ignorance that knows it Is ig-
norant is never hopeless. The
poor NAVY" working on the docks
of Liverpool became useful scien-
tific worker, with Huxley's help,
because, like Socrates, he knew,
in the beginning, that he knew
nothing.
But the poor creature turned
out of Harvard, Yale, or Oxford,
who thinks he is educated because
I papa has paid his board at col
1ege, is in the deepest depth Of
hopelessness. The peptonized, pre-
digested education" that has been
pumped into him fills up the space
and keeps out all possibility OF
real education, when, as usually
happens, the little mind was stuff
ed full, at the beginning, with
more than it could digest.
Force an elephants meal into
a donkey every day for year or
two and that donkey's digestion
will never be normal.
The ordinary man who, knowing
nothing-not even that he knows
nothing-considers himself edu-
Gated, is like the youth that
studied in a lawyers office for a
! week, then stopped. saying, II
don't like the law, and I'm sorry
i learned it."
An Englishman wrote a book on
! "The Curse Of Education" and
every man with money to spend
, on his sons ought to read It, or
know what 1t says. Travel
, FORMS youth. when it does not
DEFORM it," is an old French
! 6dyl E<uuChltUh VI tuC Soh0
ventional sort FORMS the mind,
when it does not DEFORM it.
Some father read about the edu-
cation of John Stuart Mill, how
. he began studying Greek at three
years of age, at eight had read
six dialogues OF Plato, XenophOn's
Anabasis, all the writings OF He
rodotus; at ten had read AND uN-
DERSTOOD more than 99S col
, lege graduates In 1000.
"Ah," says the ambitious
father, "that's the thing. for NY
boy. He also shall study IsicArdo
, and Adam Smith at twelve
1t is as though papa donkey,
seeing the young elephant eat and
watching the old elephant work,
should plan to make a powerful
elephant of his donkey-son by
feeding. 1t can't be done. Give
youth opportunity and incentive,
but FORCE NOTHING; and,
above all, change the system that
gives young men ignorant Of their
own ignorance diploma saying
that they are educated.
This day, January 18th, is
! the day on which Franklin was
born, 2ls years ago. He was an
educated man. And, like other
men educated, he taught the world
his age and this one. Study HIS
8 education and how he got it. He
gave up eating meat to save money.
for books. He really WANTED
knowledge. Without intense de-.
sire there is no education.
Franklin had none of what
proud fathers would call real edu-
cation.
But he had the brain to digest
and the ambition to want knowl-
edge. He read T. Spectator. That
taught him to write, more than all
other books. He was born know
ing how to THINK clearly-you
cannot learn that. He read "The
Pilgrims Progress" which is
good foundation for the use Of
English.
He read Locke on The Human
OndeTStdndthg, not because IL was
part Of some course, but because
he WANTED to read it. When he
was nearly thirty he decided that
he wanted to understand languages
other than his own. He taught
himself to read Spanish, Italian,
French. and Latin.
It is said, of Franklin's style,
clear, simple, convincing, and
strong, that he got something
from Defoe, something from Cot
ton Mather, who could make
hell's fire seem very real, some
thing from Plutarch, and most
from Bunyan.
He got most, of course, from the
, big Franklin brain that worked
for this country here and abroad,
dealing not as an equal, but as a
superior (and they knew ito. with
the most highly and conventional
ly educated" men Of Europe.
The so-called educated" are
often ignorant because they be-