Sorry. I should have added that his ideas weren't adopted by the state once independence was achieved. Even now we still have much the same exam-orientated soul-destroying system we inherited from the British.
I've found this debate interesting, because I know that in turn-of-the-century Ireland similar views were expressed about our education system.
Our system was a British offshoot, and some, notably Patrick Pearse, felt that its sole purpose was to crush independence of spirit and to produce drones, the best of whom would be equipped only to work for the British Civil Service, while the less fortunate ones would be stuck with lives of agricultural drudgery or forced to emigrate.
(Whether such effects were intended or not is a different matter.)
Pearse, who became something of a plaster saint in newly Independent Ireland but is now regarded in a rather more jaundiced way, wrote a book called "The Murder Machine" about this very point and founded his own bilingual school to attempt to change this.
It was his failure to change the system peacefully that drove him to become such a prominent figure in our independence struggle.
Pearse may have been narcissistic and obsessed with a notion of blood-sacrifice, but I still find it interesting to think that somebody would have been willing to lead a rebellion with the primary aim of reforming the education system.
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