Appendix 1. — Ruffled Teachers

Published in the Sunday Chronicle, September 12th, 1937
The Breeze at the British Association

I FIND myself in trouble with a number of indignant school inspectors¹ and teachers throughout the country, and I am in the awkward position of a man who is essentially² right but who has nevertheless been rather tactless in his phrasing. And also I have suffered from the necessity reporters and editors are under to compress and point what one has said. At times their sense of drama leads them to omit the meat and give only the salt and mustard, and so one’s remarks are presented in a state of exaggerated pungency³. I find I have wounded more than I intended.

Moreover the reporters at the meeting were supplied with a first draft of my address and this I had already modi6ed in certain respects before I read it. For example, I did not say our schools are “drooling along” much as they did in 1900. “Drooling” was a hard offensive word. Actually I said they were “going along” much as they did in 1900, but the reporters sitting under me with the printed draft before them did not note the change nor did they notice the insertion of a considerable passage upon the underpayment, overwork, limitation upon initiative and so forth⁴ that prevent a vigorous teacher from doing himself or herself full justice. But these are subsidiary matters.

I still maintain when all allowances have been made for the progress of education in the past third of a century that elementary teaching throughout the world — even in our own urban elementary schools where progress has been most marked — has not kept pace with the demands of a time in which such things as aviation and radio have leapt out of nothingness into primary importance in our affairs, and in which human power for good or evil has been stupendously increased. Schools as a whole may be going forwards, but nevertheless they are being outrun. In the race between education and catastrophe⁵, catastrophe is winning.

And anxious though I am to salve the feelings of teachers and scholastic⁶ authorities in this matter, I am obliged to remark upon one or two characteristics of this storm of protest and repudiation⁷ I have provoked. The first is the solidarity⁸ of the teachers in their indignation. I say there are teachers who are not up to their job, that some of them have not been done up inside for fifty years. They are as damp and rotten as old houses. And surely every teacher knows that that is true. “Some” is not “all.” But will they admit it? Instead they flare⁹ up. “You say we are all damp and rotten!” I don’t. And when I say two-thirds of the teaching profession is in urgent need of either reconditioning or superannuation, I mean two-thirds and not the whole.

In spite of the anger I have evoked¹⁰ I stick to that rough estimate. The level of qualification is still far too low for modern needs, the amount of reconditioning in brief “holiday” courses and so forth is not enough, and the educational engine in the social apparatus¹¹ is not up to the stresses it has to meet, We want more and better teachers. We want them urgently. Elementary education lags — throughout the world. I stick to that.

From all the Parts of the country come “retorts” to my address. “Smithstown Director of Education Hits Out”, and that sort of thing. Maybe sometimes the journalist barbs¹² the shaft¹³. The more substantial counter-attack is that I am out of date — usually it is “sadly out of date”. Poor Mr. Wells! A charming head girl (with photograph) is produced to say that surely I must be thinking of my own school days sixty years ago, and inspectors, masters, head-mistresses and assistants combine in being “amused” at my unawareness¹⁴ of the blinding light in which their pupils live nowadays. They say I have not been in a school for fifty years, which is not exactly true and that lays them open to the obvious remark that some of them seem never to have been out of school all their lives. It is a peculiar¹⁵ atmosphere for I the teacher, that school atmosphere. It seems to beget¹⁶ a peculiar sensitiveness to criticism. One magnificent head-mistress is “disgusted” that I do not know that in 1917 she was teaching exactly what I ask to have taught and taught properly in I937. Sonic day she may read my address in full, bring herself to study my innocent-looking diagram, and realise with a shock to how much foresight¹⁷, modernity and religious novelty she had laid claim. Much capital is made of the fact that I hoped some day “1066 and all that” will be altogether forgotten in our schools. My assailants assume this to be an assertion that “1066 and all that” is what they are I teaching today. But is its They should read more carefully. The fact remains¹⁸ that the 1066 stuff is still going on in places now. And even when “1066 and all that” is left behind, it may still be a long long way to the necessary historical basis of a modern mind. A little stuff about “hunter peoples” and “plough peoples” may not settle the matter. I remain unconvinced of this alleged¹⁹ complete modernisation of history teaching. What alarms me most in this outburst of retorts is the tremendous self-satisfaction of so many of these acting²⁰ educationists. I should hate to think it true that you can teach something to every man (or woman) except a schoolmaster (or schoolmistress). But you should see my mail and press cuttings this week. I remain absolutely sure that no proper treatment of the property-money conventions suitable for teaching has yet been achieved and I deny that any elementary education for the modern world state is possible until that is done. Nothing but twaddle and nonsense about property, money or economic control is being handed out to young people throughout the world. No picture of the economic world is given them. My magnificent schoolmistress, my hitting — out director of education, and all the rest of them, are in a state of self-protective hallucination about that.

I admit the extraordinary difficulty of creating a really modernised universal education, but I insist upon its Urgent necessity. In the course of the remaining discussions of the British Association it did become clear to us that we could not discuss education in vacuo. Education must have an objective and that objective must be the ideal of a community in which the educated person will live. Our Nazi²¹ and French visitors, Professor Levy²² and Mr. F. Horrabin, helped us to realise that. If the activities of the Educational Section of the British Association of this year did nothing else, they serve materially to show how inseparable is education from the general body of social science and theory.

Education and social existence are reciprocal. Its informative²³ side has to be essentially social elucidation²⁴. So that the ideal teacher can never be a specialist; he has to have a working conception of the world as a whole into which his teaching fits. When I write or talk to teachers about the real magnitude of their task I am apt to feel like Max Beerbohm’s caricature of Walt Whitman urging the American eagle to soar. It remained ruffled²⁵ and inactive on its perch²⁶. Nevertheless for good or ill the future is in the hands of the teachers as it is in the hands of no other men and women, and the more this is recognised the more urgent our criticisms of them will have to be.

1 inspectors   

n.检查员( inspector的名词复数 )；（英国公共汽车或火车上的）查票员；（警察）巡官；检阅官

参考例句：

• They got into the school in the guise of inspectors. 他们假装成视察员进了学校。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inspectors checked that there was adequate ventilation. 检查员已检查过，通风良好。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

3 pungency   

n.（气味等的）刺激性；辣；（言语等的）辛辣；尖刻

参考例句：

• I'd also like some pungency wings for appetizer. 我想要在餐前来点辣鸡翅。 来自辞典例句
• He commented with typical pungency. 他评论时带着典型的讽刺口气。 来自互联网

4 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

5 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

6 scholastic   

adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的

参考例句：

• There was a careful avoidance of the sensitive topic in the scholastic circles.学术界小心地避开那个敏感的话题。
• This would do harm to students' scholastic performance in the long run.这将对学生未来的学习成绩有害。

7 repudiation   

n.拒绝；否认；断绝关系；抛弃

参考例句：

• Datas non-repudiation is very important in the secure communication. 在安全数据的通讯中，数据发送和接收的非否认十分重要。 来自互联网
• There are some goals of Certified E-mail Protocol: confidentiality non-repudiation and fairness. 挂号电子邮件协议需要具备保密性、不可否认性及公平性。 来自互联网

8 solidarity   

n.团结；休戚相关

参考例句：

• They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
• The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。

9 flare   

v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发

参考例句：

• The match gave a flare.火柴发出闪光。
• You need not flare up merely because I mentioned your work.你大可不必因为我提到你的工作就动怒。

10 evoked   

[医]诱发的

参考例句：

• The music evoked memories of her youth. 这乐曲勾起了她对青年时代的回忆。
• Her face, though sad, still evoked a feeling of serenity. 她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。

11 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

12 barbs   

n.（箭头、鱼钩等的）倒钩( barb的名词复数 )；带刺的话；毕露的锋芒；钩状毛

参考例句：

• She slung barbs at me. 她说了些讥刺我的话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I would no longer uncomplainingly accept their barbs or allow their unaccountable power to go unchallenged. 我不会再毫无怨言地洗耳恭听他们带刺的话，或让他们的不负责任的权力不受到挑战。 来自辞典例句

13 shaft   

n.(工具的)柄，杆状物

参考例句：

• He was wounded by a shaft.他被箭击中受伤。
• This is the shaft of a steam engine.这是一个蒸汽机主轴。

14 unawareness   

不知觉；不察觉；不意；不留神

参考例句：

• Perhaps that faculty of unawareness was what gave her eyes their transparency. 或许正是这种麻木不仁的本领，使她的眼睛透明见底。

15 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

16 beget   

v.引起；产生

参考例句：

• Dragons beget dragons,phoenixes beget phoenixes.龙生龙，凤生凤。
• Economic tensions beget political ones.经济紧张导致政治紧张。

17 foresight   

n.先见之明，深谋远虑

参考例句：

• The failure is the result of our lack of foresight.这次失败是由于我们缺乏远虑而造成的。
• It required a statesman's foresight and sagacity to make the decision.作出这个决定需要政治家的远见卓识。

18 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

19 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为

20 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

21 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

22 levy   

n.征收税或其他款项，征收额

参考例句：

• They levy a tax on him.他们向他征税。
• A direct food levy was imposed by the local government.地方政府征收了食品税。

23 informative   

adj.提供资料的，增进知识的

参考例句：

• The adverts are not very informative.这些广告并没有包含太多有用信息。
• This intriguing book is both thoughtful and informative.这本引人入胜的书既有思想性又富知识性。

24 elucidation   

n.说明，阐明

参考例句：

• The advertising copy is the elucidation text,which must be written according to the formula of AIDA. 文案是说明文，应基本遵照AIDA公式来写作。 来自互联网
• Fourth, a worm hole, elucidation space-time can stretch, compression, rent, also is deduced time-travel this idea. 第四，有了虫洞，就说明时空可以被拉伸、压缩、撕裂，也就推导出了时空旅行这个想法。 来自互联网

25 ruffled   

adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• She ruffled his hair affectionately. 她情意绵绵地拨弄着他的头发。
• All this talk of a strike has clearly ruffled the management's feathers. 所有这些关于罢工的闲言碎语显然让管理层很不高兴。

26 perch   

n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于

参考例句：

• The bird took its perch.鸟停歇在栖木上。
• Little birds perch themselves on the branches.小鸟儿栖歇在树枝上。