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A Re-evaluation of the current education debate through the lives of Prof. T. H. Huxley and H. G. Wells at Imperial College.
Edited & Introduced by Michael Newman
This book is a celebration and a critical analysis. The irony of the tribute, to an institution that is so heavily criticised by one of its most famous products, should not be lost. The heroes, and there are many, of what is now Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, have fought valiently for liberal education. Indeed, they may have succeeded in their own teaching and in influencing Kings, governments or commissions, but their enemy, an examination structure and a system of financing, is one that fails to be subdued by any deliberate philosophy. Especially one that promotes teaching for the sake of opening minds rather than training skills and passing on profitable knowledge.
The irony was summed-up, painfully, last year, when, as an alumnus, I was sent a beautiful colour brochure by the college seeking donations. It wa s commercially selling itself as a producer of engineers, physicists, pest-controllers, business people. The heroes were there; used to help prostitute their institution.
T H Huxley, a fighter for liberal education for all, for free museums and libraries! His memorial is a magnificent statue in the Natural History Museum, a part of the once great Imperial complex, a museum that now flies in the face of his fight for free education for all by merchandising itself and its contents. And there is H G Wells, a student who had to go without food because his weekly grant—a scholarship to encourage bright people into teaching!—ran out before the end of each week, and who so heavily criticised the lack of liberal education at Imperial that they refused to name their library after him! But when you are marketing who respects the past.
Michael Newman
Teacher at Summerhill School
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