Educating Cows
My students read a fascinating essay by C S Lewis entitled "Our English Syllabus," which contains the following quote:
When the cow has finished eating she chews the cud; when she has finished chewing she sleeps; when she has finished sleeping she eats again. She is a machine for turning grass into calves and milk--in other words, for producing more cows. ... When God made the beasts dumb he saved the world from infinite boredom, for if they could speak they would all of them, all day, talk nothing but shop.
Recently I read the following comment by Dr Vigen Guroian about modern education:
[It] treats young men and women precisely as if they were destined to be at shop and to talk shop all day long. ... We prepare young people to become cows and mules rather than men and women. We expend great energy and dedicate vast sums of money towards directing all of youth's energy into the pursuit of a career. We are more concerned that our students learn to be professionals and prepare themselves for careers than we are that they learn about the human condition and cultivate the moral imagination. My [university] has sent out into society far too many souls whose imaginations are starved, who do not know what to do with themselves when they are not at work other than to feed appetites that will never be satisfied and to pursue pleasures that will never bring happiness.
Comentários