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第12章

a treatise on parents and children(父母与子女专题研究)-第12章


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a place   so   inane; so dull; so useless;   so   miserable; that   nobody  has   ever 

ventured to describe a whole day in heaven; though plenty of people have 

described a day at the seaside; and that the genuine popular verdict on it is 

expressed   in   the   proverb   〃Heaven   for   holiness   and   Hell   for   company。〃 

Second;      I  point  out   that  the  wretched     people    who    have   independent 

incomes   and   no   useful   occupation;   do   the   most   amazingly   disagreeable 

and dangerous things to make themselves tired and hungry in the evening。 

When      they   are  not   involved    in  what   they   call  sport;   they   are  doing 

aimlessly  what   other   people   have   to   be   paid   to   do: driving   horses   and 

motor cars; trying on dresses and walking up and down to shew them off; 

and acting as footmen and housemaids to royal personages。                  The sole and 

obvious cause of the notion that idleness is delightful and that heaven is a 

place   where   there   is   nothing   to   be   done;   is   our   school   system   and   our 

industrial system。       The school is a prison in which work is a punishment 

and   a   curse。   In   avowed   prisons;   hard   labor;   the   only   alleviation   of   a 

prisoner's     lot;  is  treated   as  an   aggravation     of   his  punishment;      and 

everything      possible   is  done    to  intensify   the  prisoner's   inculcated     and 

unnatural notion that work is an evil。          In industry we are overworked and 

underfed   prisoners。      Under   such   absurd   circumstances   our   judgment   of 

things    becomes      as  perverted     as  our   habits。    If   we   were    habitually 

underworked and overfed; our notion of heaven would be a place where 

everybody worked strenuously for twenty…four hours a day and never got 

anything to eat。 

     Once realize that a perpetual holiday is beyond human endurance; and 

that 〃Satan finds some   mischief still for idle hands to do〃 and it will be 

seen that we have no right to impose a perpetual holiday on children。                    If 



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                        A TREATISE ON PARENTS AND CHILDREN 



we did; they would soon outdo the Labor Party in their claim for a Right to 

Work Bill。 

     In any case no child should be brought up to suppose that its food and 

clothes come down from heaven or are miraculously conjured from empty 

space   by  papa。      Loathsome   as   we   have   made   the   idea   of   duty  (like   the 

idea    of   work)     we   must     habituate    children     to  a   sense    of  repayable 

obligation      to  the   community       for   what    they   consume      and    enjoy;   and 

inculcate   the   repayment   as   a   point   of   honor。    If   we   did   that   todayand 

nothing but flat dishonesty prevents us from doing itwe should have no 

idle rich and indeed probably no rich; since there is no distinction in being 

rich if you have to pay scot and lot in personal effort like the working folk。 

Therefore;   if   for   only   half   an   hour   a   day;   a   child   should   do   something 

serviceable to the community。 

     Productive work for children has the advantage that its discipline is the 

discipline of impersonal necessity; not that of wanton personal   coercion。 

The eagerness of children in our industrial districts to escape from school 

to the factory is not caused by lighter tasks or shorter hours in the factory; 

nor   altogether   by   the   temptation   of   wages;   nor   even   by   the   desire   for 

novelty;  but by  the  dignity  of   adult   work;  the  exchange  of the   factitious 

personal tyranny of the schoolmaster; from which the grown…ups are free; 

for   the   stern   but   entirely   dignified   Laws   of   Life   to   which   all   flesh   is 

subject。 



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                        A TREATISE ON PARENTS AND CHILDREN 



              University Schoolboyishness 



     Older children might do a good deal before beginning their collegiate 

education。      What is the matter with our universities is that all the students 

are schoolboys; whereas it is of the very essence of university education 

that   they   should   be   men。    The   function   of   a   university   is   not   to   teach 

things   that   can   now   be taught   as   well   or   better  by  University  Extension 

lectures     or  by   private    tutors   or  modern     correspondence        classes   with 

gramophones。         We go to them to be socialized; to acquire the hall mark 

of communal training; to become citizens of the world instead of inmates 

of   the   enlarged    rabbit   hutches     we   call  homes;     to  learn   manners     and 

become       unchallengeable       ladies   and    gentlemen。      The     social   pressure 

which effects these changes should be that of persons who have faced the 

full    responsibilities     of   adults    as  working      members       of   the   general 

community; not that of a barbarous rabble of half emancipated schoolboys 

and unemancipable pedants。             It is true that in a reasonable state of society 

this    outside    experience     would     do   for   us   very   completely      what    the 

university   does   now   so   corruptly   that   we   tolerate   its   bad   manners   only 

because   they  are   better   than   no   manners   at   all。  But   the   university   will 

always exist in some form as a community of persons desirous of pushing 

their   culture    to  the  highest    pitch   they   are  capable     of;  not  as  solitary 

students reading in seclusion; but as members of a body of individuals all 

pursuing   culture;   talking   culture;   thinking   culture;   above   all;   criticizing 

culture。     If such persons are to read and talk and criticize to any purpose; 

they   must   know   the   world   outside   the   university   at   least   as   well   as   the 

shopkeeper in the High Street does。 And this is just what they do not know 

at   present。    You   may  say  of   them;  paraphrasing Mr。   Kipling;  〃What   do 

they   know   of   Plato   that   only   Plato   know?〃      If   our   universities   would 

exclude      everybody      who    had   not   earned    a  living   by   his  or   her   own 

exertions     for   at  least  a  couple    of  years;   their   effect  would     be   vastly 

improved。 



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                        A TREATISE ON PARENTS AND CHILDREN 



                            The New Laziness 



     The   child   of   the   future;   then;   if   there   is   to   be   any  future   but   one   of 

decay; will work more or less for its living from an early age; and in doing 

so   it   will   not   shock   anyone;   provided   there   be   no   longer   any   reason   to 

associate the conception of children working for their living with infants 

toiling in a factory for ten hours a day or boys drudging from nine to six 

under gas lamps in underground city offices。 Lads and lasses in their teens 

will probably  be   able   to   produce   as   much   as   the   most   expensive   person 

now   costs   in   his   own   person   (it   is   retinue   that   eats   up   the   big   income) 

without working too hard or too long for quite as much happiness as they 

can    enjoy。    The     question    to  be   balanced     then   will   be;  not   how    soon 

people should be put to work; but how soon they should be released from 

any obligation of the kind。 A life's work is like a day's work:                  it can begin 

early and leave   off early  or begin   late and leave off late; or;  as with us; 

begin   too   early   and   never   leave   off   at   all;   obviously   the   worst   of   all 

possible   plans。  

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