enly distributed amongst the victims
of the process. But the fact that this should be the case at all speaks
eloquently for the crass ignorance which results from the confounding,
on the part of so-called educationists, of mere fact-cramming and
subject-compulsion with the proper development of the human faculties.

CHAPTER VI

THE OUTPUT OF PRIGS

Having considered the evils produced by sham education, such as is
compulsorily given to the masses of the people, we can proceed to
examine into the average results effected by more genuine and efficient
systems of cramming and instruction. It is not in the least degree
necessary, for this purpose, to go into minute comparisons of the
various types of secondary schools and colleges that have been
established in this country. In the actual method of teaching there is
little to choose between them. All have practically a common aim,
namely, the preparation of boys and young men for examinations.

Of course, all boys who go to school are not destined for professions
that necessitate the passing of an examination, competitive or
otherwise. But that does not disturb the school authorities a jot, or
involve the slightest relaxation of the school system. The boys are
crammed just the same. Whoever wishes to pass through the mill must go
in like a pig at one end and come out as a sausage at the other. There
is no middle course except the private tutor; and he, owing to the
defects of his own early training and to the terrific Conservatism
peculiar to his profession, probably knows no better process than the
familiar routine of cram and idea-suppression.

The whole of school life is a scramble for marks. The school managers
and masters are interested in getting the boys stuffed with facts,
dates, figures, and inflections, because the prestige of the school--and
consequently its commercial success--is mainly dependent upon the
creditable placing of pupils in public examinations. Therefore the boys
are encouraged, or rather compelled, to occupy themselves with what will
best conduce to secure this object, regardless of their own wishes or
obvious inclinations.

A boy might enter a grammar-school, or one of the great public schools,
teeming to his finger-tips with an inborn thirst for scientific
knowledge; he might spend all his spare moments making crude experiments
with an air-pump, or gazing at planets through a cheap astronomical
telescope; he might fail dismally to g