But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow

get rid of authority in education; it is not so much
(as poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to
be preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed
But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow
get rid of authority in education; it is not so much
(as poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to
be preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw
once said that he hated the idea of forming a child"s mind.
In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself;
for he hates something inseparable from human life.
I only mentioned educere and the drawing out of the faculties
in order to point out that even this mental trick does not avoid
the inevitable idea of parental or scholastic authority.
The educator drawing out is just as arbitrary and coercive
as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out what he chooses.
He decides what in the child shall be developed and what
shall not be developed. He does not (I suppose) draw out
the neglected faculty of forgery. He does not (so far at least)
lead out, with timid steps, a shy talent for torture.
The only result of all this pompous and precise distinction
between the educator and the instructor is that the instructor
pokes where he likes and the educator pulls where he likes.
Exactly the same intellectual violence is done to the creature
who is poked and pulled. Now we must all accept the responsibility
of this intellectual violence. Education is violent;
because it is creative. It is creative because it is human.
It is as reckless as playing on the fiddle; as dogmatic
as drawing a picture; as brutal as building a house.
In short, it is what all human action is; it is an interference
with life and growth. After that it is a trifling and even
a jocular question whether we say of this tremendous tormentor,
the artist Man, that he puts things into us like an apothecary,
or draws things out of us, like a dentist.