Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education онлайн

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So I went out into the world to make my own way, and to fight for the preservation of my own talent. I had given the academic authorities nine years in which to do what they could to me, so I might fairly lay claim to be a completely educated man. I look back now, and see myself as I was, and I shudder—not merely for myself, but for all other products of the educational machine. I think of the things I didn’t know, and of the pains and perils to which my ignorance exposed me! I knew nothing whatever about hygiene and health; everything of that sort I had to learn by painful error. I knew nothing about women; I had met only three or four beside my mother, and had no idea how to deal with them. I knew as much about sex as was known to the ancient religious ascetics, but nothing of modern discoveries or theories on the subject.

More significant yet, I knew nothing about modern literature in any language; I had acquired a supreme and top-lofty contempt for it, and was embarrassed when I happened to read “Sentimental Tommy,” and discovered that someone had written a work of genius in my own time! I knew nothing about modern history; so far as my mind was concerned, the world had come to an end with the Franco-Prussian war, and nothing had happened since. Of course, there was the daily paper, but I didn’t know what this daily paper was, who made it, or what relation it had to me. I knew that politics was rotten, but I didn’t know the cause of this rottenness, nor had I any idea what to do about it. I knew nothing about money, the life-blood of society, nor the part it plays in the life of modern men. I knew nothing about business, except that I despised it, and shrank in agony of spirit from contact with business people. All that I knew about labor was a few tags of prejudice which I had picked up from newspapers.