E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Most of us are pseudo-scholars...for we are a very large and quite a powerful class, eminent in Church and State, we control the education of the Empire, we lend to the Press such distinction as it consents to receive, and we are a welcome asset at dinner-parties. Pseudo-scholarship is, on its good side, the homage paid by ignorance to learning. It also has an economic side, on which we need not be hard. Most of us must get a job before thirty, or sponge on our relatives, and many jobs can only be got by passing an exam. The pseudo-scholar often does well in examination (real scholars are not much good), and even when he fails he appreciates their inner majesty. They are gateways to employment, they have power to ban and bless. A paper on King Lear may lead somewhere, unlike the rather far-fetched play of the same name. It may be a stepping-stone to the Local Government Board. He does not often put it to himself openly and say, "That's the use of knowing things, they help you to get on." The economic pressure he feels is more often subconscious, and he goes to his exam, merely feeling that a paper on King Lear is a very tempestuous and terrible experience but an intensely real one. ... As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment were contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider."
11 Quotes
"Most of us are pseudo-scholars...for we are a very large and quite a powerful class, eminent in Church and State, we control the education of the Empire, we lend to the Press such distinction as it consents to receive, and we are a welcome asset at dinner-parties. Pseudo-scholarship is, on its good side, the homage paid by ignorance to learning. It also has an economic side, on which we need not be hard. Most of us must get a job before thirty, or sponge on our relatives, and many jobs can only be got by passing an exam. The pseudo-scholar often does well in examination (real scholars are not much good), and even when he fails he appreciates their inner majesty. They are gateways to employment, they have power to ban and bless. A paper on King Lear may lead somewhere, unlike the rather far-fetched play of the same name. It may be a stepping-stone to the Local Government Board. He does not often put it to himself openly and say, "That's the use of knowing things, they help you to get on." The economic pressure he feels is more often subconscious, and he goes to his exam, merely feeling that a paper on King Lear is a very tempestuous and terrible experience but an intensely real one. ... As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment were contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider."
"إن معظمنا من أدعياء العلم... فنحن طبقة واسعة النفوذ والقوة، بارزون في دوائر الدين والدولة، نتحكم في زمام التعليم في الإمبراطورية، ونُضفي على الصحافة من الوجاهة ما ترضى بقبوله، ونُعد إضافة مرغوبة في المآدب والولائم.
إن ادعاء العلم، في جانبه الإيجابي، هو إجلال الجهل للمعرفة. وله أيضًا جانب اقتصادي لا ينبغي أن نُقسّي القول فيه. فعلى معظمنا أن يجد عملاً قبل بلوغ الثلاثين، وإلا أصبح عالة على ذويه، وكثير من الوظائف لا تُنال إلا باجتياز امتحان. وغالبًا ما يُبلي أدعياء العلم بلاءً حسنًا في الامتحانات (أما العلماء الحقيقيون فلا يُجيدون خوضها)، وحتى إن أخفق، فإنه يُدرك جلالها الكامن. إنها بوابات للتوظيف، ولها سلطة الحرمان والعطاء. قد يُفضي بحث عن "الملك لير" إلى غاية، بخلاف المسرحية التي تحمل الاسم ذاته، والتي تبدو بعيدة عن الواقع. قد يكون ذلك البحث بمثابة درجة نحو مجلس الحكم المحلي. لا يُصارح نفسه غالبًا بقوله: "هذه هي جدوى المعرفة، إنها تُعينك على الارتقاء." فالضغط الاقتصادي الذي يشعر به غالبًا ما يكون لا شعوريًا، ويُقدم على امتحانه، مُكتفيًا بالشعور بأن كتابة بحث عن الملك لير تجربة عاصفة ومهيبة، لكنها في الوقت ذاته حقيقية بعمق.
...ما دام العلم مقرونًا بالكسب، وما دامت وظائف معينة لا تُنال إلا عبر الامتحانات، فعلينا أن نأخذ نظام الامتحانات على محمل الجد. ولو ابتُكر سلم آخر للتوظيف، لاندثر الكثير مما يُسمى تعليمًا، ولما ازداد أحد غباءً قيد أنملة."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Food, the stoking-up process, the keeping alive of an individual flame, the process that begins before birth and is continued after it by the mother, and finally taken over by the individual himself, who goes on day after day putting an assortment of objects into a hole in his face without becoming surprised or bored."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Unless we remember we cannot understand."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Human beings have their great chance in the novel."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"We move between two darknesses."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"we may say that History develops, Art stands still"
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Books have to be read (worse luck, for it takes a long time); it is the only way of discovering what they contain."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Expansion. That is the idea the novelist must cling to. Not completion. Not rounding off, but opening out."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"Let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
"The human mind is not a dignified organ, and I do not see how we can exercise it sincerely except through eclecticism. And the only advice I would offer my fellow eclectics is: "Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
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