'Neil Jackson has brought together important photographic evidence of truths that are subversive, because they illuminate the other side of mainstream media propaganda.'
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John Pilger, 16/11/2001
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.‘When I was young, it seemed that
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John Pilger, 16/11/2001
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.‘When I was young, it seemed that
Life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was
beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
A miracle, oh it was
beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
Well they’d be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away
To teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world
Where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.’
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Clinical, intellectual, cynical.’
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Supertramp, The Logical Song
(Released 1979)
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‘The ruling class was still the ruling class. Despite the variety of the 1945 cabinet, Britain in the forties and fifties was a society run mostly by cliques and groups of friends who had first met at public schools and Oxbridge… Schools such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester might educate only 5 per cent of the population, but they still provided the majority of political leaders…’
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Andrew Marr,
A History of Modern Britain
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Traditionally, ‘the chief nurse of England's statesmen’, Eton College near Windsor boasts among its former pupils
eighteen British Prime Ministers, members of royal families
(both British and foreign)
and countless Barons, Dukes, Earls and Viscounts.
eighteen British Prime Ministers, members of royal families
(both British and foreign)
and countless Barons, Dukes, Earls and Viscounts.
The powerful send their children to Eton.
‘This is a really good lesson,’ I said to a boy I was sitting next to on the back row during one such visit.
‘It bloody well ought to be,’ he replied, ‘we’ve been practising it for weeks’.
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If, from its inception, the agenda of Eton is to take the privileged cream of society and groom them to lead us, it begs the question – what is the agenda behind compulsory state schooling?
‘Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished… when the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects without the need of armies or policemen.’
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In 1806 the Prussians were defeated by Napoleon at the Battle of Jena and then humiliated by the subsequent Treaty of Tilsit, which shrunk the German state to half its former size and population. The blame for the defeat lay, it was believed, in Prussian soldiers thinking for themselves.
To stop this from ever happening again, it was decided that the country’s children should undergo eight years of compulsory schooling, emphasising obedience, duty, respect for authority and the ability to follow orders.
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To stop this from ever happening again, it was decided that the country’s children should undergo eight years of compulsory schooling, emphasising obedience, duty, respect for authority and the ability to follow orders.
‘In the domain of primary and technical education, Germany has also become the universal teacher of Europe.’
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German philosopher
Friedrich Paulsen
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German philosopher
Friedrich Paulsen
(1846-1908)
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The powerful were so impressed with the effects of Prussian schooling that they have imposed it on children to this day.
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‘Give me the boy for seven years and I will give you the man.’
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Jesuit saying
'Giving education to the labouring classes of the poor... would teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to which their rank in society has destined them; instead of teaching them the virtue of subordination, it would render them fractious and refactory.’
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Bodmin MP Davies Giddy debating the Parochial Schools Bill, Hansard, House of Commons, Vol 9, July 13 1807. In 1870 the Elementary Education Act was passed, making schooling compulsory for all in English schools. But where some MPs, landowners and industrialists saw danger in an educated poor becoming aware of their subordinate ‘lot in life’,
others saw opportunity – the
mass indoctrination of the
working class.
‘Kantorek was our form-master at school, a short, strict man who wore a grey frock-coat and had a shrewish face… Kantorek kept on lecturing at us in the PT lessons until the entire class marched under his leadership down to the local recruiting office and enlisted. I can still see him, his eyes shining at us through his spectacles and his voice trembling with emotion as he asked, ‘You’ll all go, won’t you lads?’
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Erich Maria Remarque,
All Quiet on the Western Front
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or any of their children into philosophers
was the pioneer of the multinational corporation.
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‘Hardly had the clock struck nine when the voices of the children in the playground hushed… the voice of the master can only be heard. In simple military movements the children entered in decent order ‘Right turn. March!’ They marched upstairs like an army of miniatures. Every one to his place without noise or confusion. Some seated themselves at desks, others stood in rows or half circles mindful always to place their toes upon a chalk line marked on the floor for that purpose.’
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Sheffield Independent, November 6, 1873
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Back then, this abusive, repressive system was seen for what it was, and was 'resisted
resisted – sometimes with guns – by an estimated 80 percent of the Massachusetts population, with the last outpost, in Barnstable on Cape Cod, not surrendering its children until the 1880s, when the area was seized by the militia and the children marched to school under guard .'
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John Taylor Gatto
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resisted – sometimes with guns – by an estimated 80 percent of the Massachusetts population, with the last outpost, in Barnstable on Cape Cod, not surrendering its children until the 1880s, when the area was seized by the militia and the children marched to school under guard .'
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John Taylor Gatto
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But that was going against the wishes of the rich.
Hence, openly stated
Hence, openly stated
over a century ago by ‘educators’ working for
the world’s richest man:
the world’s richest man:
‘In our dreams...people yield themselves with
perfect docility to our molding hands.
The present educational conventions
(intellectual and character education)
fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition
We shall not try to make these people
or men of learning or men of science…’
‘…We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply.
The task we set before ourselves is very simple...
we will organize children...
and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their
fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.’
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The task we set before ourselves is very simple...
we will organize children...
and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their
fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.’
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John D Rockefeller's General Education Board's
first mission statement (Occasional Letter Number One),
dated 1906. John D Rockefeller (1839 – 1937)
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‘The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming,
where everyone would be interdependent.’
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John Dewey, 1899
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The Logical Song, Supertramp
where everyone would be interdependent.’
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‘We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself
among the laboring classes.’
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among the laboring classes.’
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1888 Senate Committee
on Education
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‘I said, now watch what you say or
they’ll be calling you a radical,
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.’
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.’
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‘We want one class to have a
liberal education. We want
another class, a very much
larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult
manual tasks.’
larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult
manual tasks.’
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President Woodrow Wilson,
1909 speech to teachers
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‘Ninety-nine (learners) out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.’
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US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906
The Philosophy of Education
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William Torrey Harris,
The Philosophy of Education
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/robot/
• noun a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer.
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— DERIVATIVES robotize (also robotise) verb.
— ORIGIN from Czech robota ‘forced labour’; the term was coined in Chacek’s play R.U.R. ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ (1920)’
Compact Oxford English Dictionary
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‘It is a miracle that
curiosity survives
formal education.’
curiosity survives
formal education.’
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Albert Einstein
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‘Ever wonder why we go to school?... Its societies way of turning all the young people into good little robots and factory workers that’s why we sit in desks in rows and go by bell schedules, to get prepared for
the real world cause
‘that’s what its like.’’
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the real world cause
‘that’s what its like.’’
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Eric Harris, shooter at the Columbine High School massacre, in his journal.
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Below: plans for a prison. Drawing a wall between independent, critical thinking and the great mass of the population.
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Forward to Germany
