What nobody dares to say

 In 1868, T.H. Huxley declared:

Nobody outside the agricultural interest now dares to say that education is a bad thing.

 

He was speaking at the South London Working Men’s College, where people in the trades could get an education. In the rural areas, people with property and money considered education a waste of money. Most of the people in the farming regions were poor agricultural workers. The landowners wanted a permanent supply of cheap labor. They liked the idea of an uneducated class of poorly paid workers — people with so little education they had no choice but to stay on the farm.

The world has changed since then. Agricultural interests have invested in education.

Unfortunately, other moneyed interests have taken up the crusade against education. The White House, for example.

• Source: T.H. Huxley, A Liberal Education and Where to Find It; Girard, Kansas: Kessinger Publishing 2005. You can find a copy here:

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/LibEd.html