I Condemn Ignorance

"I condemn the ignorance that prevails at this time in democracies as well as in totalitarian regimes. This ignorance is so deep, often so complete, that one would think it was deliberately cultivated by the system, if not by the regime itself. I have often reflected on what the education of a child might be.

I think there should be a very simple basic education, in which the child would learn that they exist within the universe, on a planet whose resources they will later have to preserve; that they depend on the air, water, and all living things; and that the slightest mistake or the slightest act of violence could risk destroying everything.

They would learn that human beings have killed one another in wars that have done nothing but produce more wars, and that every country rewrites its history dishonestly, in order to flatter its own pride.

They would be taught enough about the past to feel connected to the people who came before them, to admire them where they deserve admiration, without turning them into idols—any more than they should turn the present or some hypothetical future into idols.

We would try to familiarize them both with books and with the world around them; they would know the names of plants and become acquainted with animals without subjecting themselves to the hideous vivisections imposed on children and very young adolescents under the pretext of biology. They would learn how to give first aid to the injured; their sex education would include attending a childbirth, and their mental education would include witnessing serious illness and death.

They would also be taught the basic principles of morality, without which life in society is impossible—an education that elementary and secondary schools in this country no longer dare to provide.

As for religion, they would be forced to adopt neither practices nor dogmas, but they would be told something about all the great religions of the world, and especially about that of the country in which they live, in order to awaken respect in them and to dispel certain hateful prejudices before they take root.

They would be taught to love work when that work is useful, and not to fall prey to the deception of advertising, beginning with the advertising that promotes more or less adulterated sweets, preparing them for future cavities and diabetes.

There is certainly a way to talk to children about things that truly matter earlier than we do."

Marguerite YOURCENAR (1903–1987)