14 This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the most suitable candidate is English. It is already the de facto second language of the world; and every teacher of languages knows that this is because it is the least synthetic of the major tongues and therefore the easiest to learn. If we British and Americans suppose that it has gained its ubiquity simply because of our past and present political power we are much mistaken. Foreigners increasingly speak English because it is the best tool available; not because they love or admire us.
15 Its advantages are considerable. It is numerically the second most spoken (as a mother-tongue) language of the world, and the most widely spoken by non-native speakers. Its dialects, unlike those of Chinese, are largely intercomprehensible. It has a rich literature, both historical and contemporary; and it has rich resources and a facility for new development. Its alphabet is simple. And it is very well suited to both simple and complex modes of expression.
16 It has, of course, disadvantages. Its spelling is (compared to a language like Italian) very far from phonetic. It does retain some synthetic features, including some annoying irregularities in declension. In some of its spoken forms (such as British English) it becomes almost a tonal language, full of subtle nuances of meaning dependent on minute (for a foreigner) changes of stress. Its richness of vocabulary – two or three times more words than most other European languages – also creates problems of usage.
17 But the adaptations required are not too forbidding or if they are so, only to those of us for whom English is the mother-tongue. The most urgent need is for a phonetic spelling system (which would of course do something far more important than facilitate spelling: is would aid pronunciation). No one has ever fully answered Bernard Shaw’s arguments for this step. The rationalization of the present alphabet is a small price to pay for the vastly increased utility it would give to the language.
18 The second field for improvement lies in the regularization of exceptions in declension and syntax. This is a far more difficult problem, especially as so many of the exceptions he among very common words. One has only to regularize a sentence like ‘I saw the men working hard’ into ‘I seed the mans working hardly’ to realize the pitfalls. Nonetheless there are many declensional sore thumbs that could be remedied without fear of ambiguity.
19 Language is a tool, the most important that man has. We ‘should allow nothing – neither the prejudice of the linguistic chauvinists nor our (if we are English) distaste for barbaric-sounding innovations in our language – to stand in the way of a unilingual world. This is in a sense an English-speakers’ responsibility. We should perfect the tool for the special function. All the evidence is that the rest of the world will happily learn to use it.
THE THREE FURTHER AIMS OF EDUCATION
20 Education is the most vital of all social activities and therefore the most eagerly abused by the contemporary power-system – whether that system is religious, as in the Middle Ages, or political-economic, as for the last century or so. It has in fact been tyrannized since the rise of the great religions in the first millennium. In many ways the educational theories of the ancients are more modern – less corrupted by political and economic need – than any that have been evolved since, and the three further aims of education I propose are not mine. They were laid down in the third century after Christ by the great Neo-Platonist philosopher, Plotinus. He required an outward education – civil and social; an inward one – personal and self-revealing; and finally a synoptic education that would allow the student to grasp, or at least glimpse, the complex whole of human existence. This is not the place to develop in any detail the scheme of such a triple education in humanity; but some general needs and problems must be dealt with. The first and most practical difficulty in establishing a world-wide syllabus in humanity is only too clearly nationalism.
NATIONALISM
21 Nationalism is a cheap instinct and a dangerous tool. Take away from any country what it owes to other countries; and then be proud of it if you can.
22 In a poor country, patriotism is to believe that one’s country would be the best if it were rich and powerful. In a rich one, patriotism is to believe that one’s country is the best because it is rich and powerful. So patriotism becomes the desire to get what others have or to keep others from getting what one has. In short, it is an aspect of conservatism; of animal envy and animal selfishness.
23 The significant truth is not that you are lucky to have been born into one of the best – the richest or most powerful – countries; but that others are unlucky not to have been born into it. You are not a starving Indian peasant, but you might have been. That you are not is not a matter for self-congratulation, but one for charitable action, for concern. The proper domain for nationalism is art and culture; not politics.
24 Men were one in a tribe, one in a city, were one in a church, in a political party. But now they are becoming a world of isolated ones. The old bonds dissolve; the bonds of the race, of the shared language, of the shared rites, of the shared history. This is good. We disintegrate now to integrate in the only good unity: a one humanity.
25 An education in humanity must inculcate a oneness of situation in each mind in each land: a common predicament and a common existence, a common right to recompense, and a common justification and justice. It must therefore teach children to see the faults in society; by teaching them for nationalistic reasons to pretend that bad things are good, we teach them to teach the same. A bad lesson has a long life.
26 What the state or the system considers a good teacher and what is a good teacher are always two different things. A good teacher never teaches only his subject.
27 It has never been more important that we should have such teachers; and this is because we now know that in another fifty years’ time the great bulk of our teaching will be done by machines. To those who can conceive of education only as the learning of facts and techniques that will be useful to the economic system, this prospect is excellent. No human teacher will be able to equal a well-programmed computer-teacher in his command of the science of his subject, or in his efficiency as an imparter of information.
28 I referred to this mechanistic heresy in the discussion of Christianity. But the best method is the most effective one for the situation, not the most efficient in theory. The menace facing us in the near future is that we shall be ourselves mechanized into believing that the good teacher is the most efficient in terms of the facts of his subject. If we believe this, then we shall fall under the tyranny of our computers – in short, under the worst, because universal, form of nationalism in the history of man.
29 But not all is black in this prospect. There are many fields in which we can welcome the computer-teacher; and that will free the human teachers for the teaching of the subjects (perhaps it would be better to say method of teaching) where they cannot be supplanted. And one of the prime purposes of the triple education in humanity I am advocating will be to counteract, or place in perspective, the triumph of the computer in its appropriate fields.
ART AND SCIENCE
30 This specific problem of the computer-teacher leads to the next great problem: that of the proper roles of science and art in human life.
31 Everyone should have a sound grounding in all the fundamental sciences, and all should know the great linchpin, the axis of reason, that is, scientific method. But large areas of science are remote from the ordinary business of living, and I would define the areas most relevant to education in humanity as those that destroy prejudice, superstition and the kind of ignorance that is clearly harmful to society. In March, 1963, hundreds of Balinese were killed in a volcanic eruption because they would not leave their homes. They believed that the gods would punish anyone who ran away. Our world spends millions on exploring planets we already know to be uninhabitable and yet lets such lethal stupidity still brew on Earth.