On education : especially in early childhood / by Bertrand Russell.

  • Bertrand Russell
Date:
[1926]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On education : especially in early childhood / by Bertrand Russell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/264 page 9
    INTRODUCTION ‘THERE must be in the world many parents who, like the present author, have young children whom they are anxious to educate as well as possible, but reluctant to expose to the evils of most existing educational institutions. ‘The difficulties of such parents are not soluble by any effort on the part of isolated individuals. It is, of course, possible to bring up children at home by means of governesses and tutors, but this plan deprives them of the companion- ship which their nature craves, and without which some essential elements of education must be lacking. Moreover, it is extremely bad for a boy or girl to be made to feel “odd” and different from other boys and girls; this feeling, when traced to parents as its cause, is almost certain to rouse resentment against them, leading to a love of all that they most dislike. ‘The conscientious parent may be driven by these considerations to send his boys and girls to schools in which he sees grave defects, merely because no existing schools seem to him satisfactory—or, if any are satisfactory, they are not in his neighbour- hood. ‘Thus the cause of educational reform is forced upon conscientious parents, not only for the good of the community, but also for the good of their own children. If the parents are well-to-do, it is not necessary to the solution of their private problem that
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