First of all, the brains of the young people must not generally
be burdened with subjects of which ninety-five per cent are useless
to them and are therefore forgotten again. The curriculum of the
primary and secondary schools presents an odd mixture at the
present time.
In many branches of study the subject matter to be
_ learned has become so enormous that only a very small fraction of
it can be remembered later on, and indeed only a very small frac-
tion of this whole mass of knowledge can be used.
On the other
~
hand, what is learned is insufficient for anybody who wishes to
specialize in any certain branch for the purpose of earning his daily
bread.
Take, for example, the average civil servant who has passed
through the Gymnasium or High School, and ask him at the age
of thirty or forty how much he has retained of the knowledge that
was crammed into him with so much pains. How much is retained
from all that was stuffed into his brain?
He will certainly answer:
“Well, if a mass of stuff was then taught, it was not for the
sole purpose of supplying the student with a great stock of know-
ledge from which he could draw in later years; but it served to
develop the understanding, the memory, and above all it helped
to strengthen the thinking powers of the brain.”
That is partly
true.
And yet it is somewhat dangerous to submerge a young brain
in a flood of impressions which it can hardly master and the single
elements of which it cannot discern or appreciate at their just value.
It is mostly the essential part of this knowledge, and not the acci-
dental, that is forgotten and sacrificed.
‘Thus the principal pur-
pose of this copious instruction is frustrated, for that: purpose can-
not be to make the brain capable of learning by simply offering it
an enormous and varied amount of subjects for acquisition, but
rather to furnish the individual with that stock of knowledge which
he will need in later life and which he can use for the good of
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inity. This aim, however, is rendered illusory if, because
f the superabundance
of subjects that have been crammed into
his head in childhood, a person is able to remember nothing, or at
least not the essential portion, of all this in later life. There is no
reason why millions of people should learn two or three languages
ears
during the school years, when only a very small fraction will have
eS:
_ the opportunity to use these languages in later life and when most.
;
of them will therefore forget those languages completely.
To take
an instance: Out of 100,000 students who learn French there are
probably not 2,000 who will be in a position to make use of this
ey
accomplishment in later life, while 98,000 will never have a chance
—t—C~™S
to utilize in practice what they have learned in youth. They have
_
5
spent thousands of hours on a subject which will afterwards be
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without any value or importance to them.
The argument that
oe
these matters form part of the general process of educating the mind
Ee
is invalid.
It would be sound if all these people were able to use
*
2
this learning in after life.
But, as the situation stands, 98,000
are tortured to no purpose and waste their valuable time, only
for the sake of the 2,000 to whom the language will be of any
fae
use.
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In the case of that language which I have chosen as an example
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it cannot be said that the learning of it educates the student in logical
thinking or sharpens his mental acumen, as the learning of Latin,
for instance, might be said to do.
It would therefore be much
better to teach young students only the general outline or, better,
the inner structure of such a language : that is to say, to allow them
to discern the characteristic features of the language, or perhaps
to make them acquainted with the rudiments of its grammar, its
pronunciation, its syntax, style, etc.
That would be sufficient for
average students, because it would provide a clearer view of the
whole and could be more easily remembered.
And it would be
more practical than the present-day attempt to cram into their
heads a detailed knowledge of the whole language, which they can
never master and which they will readily forget.
If this method
were adopted, then we should avoid the danger that, out of the
superabundance of matter taught, only some fragments will remain
in the memory; for the youth would then have to learn what is
worth while, and the selection between the useful and the useless
would thus have been made beforehand.
As regards the majority of students, the knowledge and under-
standing of the rudiments of a language would be quite sufficient
for the rest of their lives.
And those who really do need this
language subsequently would thus have a foundation on which to
start, should they choose to make a more thorough study of it.
By adopting such a curriculum the necessary amount of time
would be gained for physical exercises, as well as for a more intense
training in the various educational fields that have already been
mentioned.
At best they will manage to fill some Asian womb with their own sperm rich of micro plastics and eventually create self-hating mongrels (on average; see the case of Elliot Rodger) with heavily skewed facial bone structure ratios (which is something highly sought after by this completely random "evolutionary" biology thing; muh Charles Darwin from muh random universe 
lacking meaning, for humans that is).
