r as this
is involved, there is no darkest London. London is not dark at all; not
even at night. We have said that if education is a solid substance, then
there is none of it. We may now say that if education is an abstract
expansion there is no lack of it. There is far too much of it. In fact,
there is nothing else.

There are no uneducated people. Everybody in England is educated; only
most people are educated wrong. The state schools were not the first
schools, but among the last schools to be established; and London had
been educating Londoners long before the London School Board. The error
is a highly practical one. It is persistently assumed that unless
a child is civilized by the established schools, he must remain a
barbarian. I wish he did. Every child in London becomes a highly
civilized person. But here are so many different civilizations, most of
them born tired. Anyone will tell you that the trouble with the poor is
not so much that the old are still foolish, but rather that the young
are already wise. Without going to school at all, the gutter-boy would
be educated. Without going to school at all, he would be over-educated.
The real object of our schools should be not so much to suggest
complexity as solely to restore simplicity. You will hear venerable
idealists declare we must make war on the ignorance of the poor;
but, indeed, we have rather to make war on their knowledge. Real
educationists have to resist a kind of roaring cataract of culture. The
truant is being taught all day. If the children do not look at the large
letters in the spelling-book, they need only walk outside and look at
the large letters on the poster. If they do not care for the colored
maps provided by the school, they can gape at the colored maps provided
by the Daily Mail. If they tire of electricity, they can take to
electric trams. If they are unmoved by music, they can take to drink. If
they will not work so as to get a prize from their school, they may work
to get a prize from Prizy Bits. If they cannot learn enough about law
and citizenship to please the teacher, they learn enough about them to
avoid the policeman. If they will not learn history forwards from the
right end in the history books, they will learn it backwards from the
wrong end in the party newspapers. And this is the tragedy of the whole
affair: that the London poor, a particularly quick-witted and civilized
class, learn everything tail foremost, learn even wha