CREATING BEDLAM FOR YOUTH
By A. K. CHESTERTON
This
article
was
written
by
A.K.Chesterton.
In
this
work,
which
was
first
published
in
1971,
the
writer
accurately
predicts
the
outcome
of
the
new
liberal
dogma
which
began
to
shape
the
opinions
of
naive
and
ignorant public servants at that time.
It
may
appear
a
lengthy
article,
but
if
you
take
the
trouble
to
read
it
you
will
come
to
understand
why
so
many
of
our
children
have
been
let
down
by
schools
and
the
politically-correct
education
authorities
which
has led to a dysfunctional society.
What
has
long
been
described
as
the
world
conspiracy
is
now
openly
proclaimed
as
the
changing
of
attitudes
-
a
term
encountered
almost
daily
in
the
world’
press.
It
has
many
aspects,
but
none
more
menacing
than
the
attempt
to
cause
chaos
among
youth
and
thereby
wean
it
from
the
well
tried
and
proved
standards
of
the
past.
This
does
not
mean
that
everybody
involved
in
the
business
is
a
revolutionary.
The
conspirators
have
only
to
create
a
trend
for
cranks
and
public
service
workers
who
then
eagerly
rush
in
and
hasten
its
momentum.
I
do
not
know
which
category
the
deputy
leader
of
the
Labour
Party
belongs,
but
as
a
supposedly
responsible
leader
Mr
Edward
Short
should
surely
not
be
encouraging
the
vicious
attempts
to
demoralise the nation's youth.
Note
should
be
taken
of
utterances
by
him
which,
if
not
subversive,
must
be
bordering
on
insanity.
Speaking
at
the
Caerleon
College
of
Education
in
Monmouthshire
he
delivered
himself
of
statements
such
as
this:
"The
old,
externally
imposed
discipline
made
children
into
hypocrites
and
liars
because
when
the
disciplinarian
was
absent,
whether
he
was
parent,
teacher
or
policeman,
there
was
no
discipline."
This
is
a
monstrous
generalisation.
Hypocrites
and
liars
there
have
always
been
and
always
will
be,
but
to
suggest
they are the end products of discipline is an absurdity so manifest that it scarcely needs refutation.
Mr
Short's
own
scholastic
idea
of
bringing
up
children
is
beautifully
simple.
They
should
be
"Free
to
talk
and
walk
about
as
their
common
purpose
demands,"
he
told
an
audience,
without
specifying
what
he
meant
by
the
demands
of
some
hypothetical
"Common
purpose".
"The
gain
from
cutting
down
rule-structures
in
communities"
he
said,
"whether
schools,
colleges
or
universities
would
be
well
worth
a
little
marginal
chaos."
A
little
marginal
chaos
-
it
has
indeed
become
a
mad
world
when
a
leading
politician
is
able
to
utter
such
claptrap
and
not
be
derisively
hooted
out
of
public
life.
Would
Edward
Short
be
good
enough
to
indicate
the
size
of
the
marginal
chaos
that
could
be
called
little".
Were
he
in
charge
of
a
boisterous
class
of
forty
or
fifty
young
hopefuls,
free
to
talk
and
walk
about
as
they
pleased,
and
whose
"Common
Purpose",
as
it
might
well
be,
to
take
"the
mickey"
out
of
him,
would
he
sit
back
congratulating
himself
that
by
non-
intervention he was preventing them becoming hypocrites and liars?
The
answer
is
perhaps
simply
that
Short
wishes
to
cash
in
on
the
trend.
His
supporting
argument
would
suggest
nothing
more
serious.
Here
in
a
nutshell
it
is.
"
Clearly,
the
notion
that
the
teacher,
parent
or
the
priest
knows
what
is
best
for
the
child
is
pushed
much
too
far
in
our
society.
The
principal
determinants
of
what a child truly learns are his own interests and his own experience."
It
would
indeed
be
a
teacher
of
superhuman
ingenuity
who
managed
to
make
sense
of
that
fantastic
concept.
What
does
it
mean
if
not
that
the
child
knows
better
than
the
parent,
teacher
or
priest
what
is
best,
and
that
all
they
have
to
do
for
him
is
to
make
a
ring
while
he
proceeds
to
promote
his
own
interests
and
undergo whatever experiences he considers desirable?
This
kind
of
rubbish
is
not
even
new.
Forty
years
ago
no-discipline
schools
were
enthusiastically
run
by
pioneers
such
as
A.S.Neill
and
Dora
Russell.
Bertrand
Russell
in
his
autobiography
confessed
that
the
school
experiment
was
a
total
failure,
while
Neill's
books
were
surprisingly
candid
about
what
went
wrong
in
his
establishment.
One
incident
I
remember
is
that
when
his
wife
lay
dying
in
the
house,
he
asked
some
rowdy
pupils
-
if
pupils
they
could
be
called
-
to
make
things
easier
for
her
by
being
less
noisy.
Their
response was to show their independence which they did by stepping up their row to yelling point.
SINISTER
What
makes
the
present
trend
so
sinister
is
that
even
as
things,
are
with
discipline
still
supposedly
enforced,
conditions
in
many
educational
establishments
especially
comprehensive
schools
-
are
such
that
keeping
order
has
become
a
farce.
Only
too
often
the
bullies
in
the
class
dominate
both
class
mates
and
luckless
teachers.
The
latter,
either
from
their
own
weakness
of
character
or
because
of
lack
of
support
from
above,
have
long
since
given
up
the
notion
that
their
job
is
to
impart
knowledge
and
are
content
if
they
can
keep
their
classes
intact
until
the
bell
sounds
their
release.
Chaotic
though
such
a
state
of
affairs
undoubtedly is, there is at least the saving grace that those subjected to this little marginal chaos deplore it.
Were
they
and
their
charges
trained
to
act
on
the
assumption
that
the
children
were
free
to
walk
around
the
classroom
and
talk
to
their
hearts
content
about
some
"common
purpose”,
without
reference
to
the
teacher's
requirements,
then
the
result
would
be
sheer
Bedlam.
Violence
would
be
enthroned
and
youth
made serviceable for the cause of world revolution.
I
do
not
suppose
that
Edward
short
has
the
least
idea
that
he
supports
such
motives,
but
here
more
than
any
other
sphere
of
public
life
ignorance
is
no
excuse
for
folly.
A
man
aspiring
to
participate
in
government,
even
though
he
may
lack
a
sense
of
history,
should
at
least
be
able
to
read
the
signs
of
the
times.
Was
Mr
Short
sunk
deep
in
coma
when
a
certain
Cohn
Benditt
spread
revolt
from
Nanterre
to
the
Sorbonne,
whence it surged under the inane title of "Student Power" to almost every university in the Western world.
Daniel
Cohn
Bendit
(Danny
the
red)
below
was
the
creator
of
the
“student
power”
revolt.
Despite
being
a
Jewish anarchist he held key positions in the French government for decades.
The
lunacy
has
now
reached
the
stage
where
the
Edward
Shorts
in
the
land
-
those
who
are
blindly
indoctrinating
the
youth
with
their
subversive
ideas
and
bringing
about
the
destruction
of
our
nation
-
must
wake
up
and
face
the
facts
and
what
these
facts
portend.
Let
them
for
a
start
pay
heed
to
a
plan
by
the
militants
at
York,
Aston,
Reading
and
Bath
Universities
(representing
more
than
12,000
students)
and
placed
before
a
National
Union
of
Students
conference.
The
plan
demands
that
violence
and
vandalism,
without
let,
hindrance
or
punishment
should
be
accorded
as
a
right
to
Britain's
half
million
students.
It
expresses
the
view
that
they
would
be
justified
in
attacking
anyone
who
disagrees
with
them
or
attempts
to
control their unruly behaviour.
Particular
targets
are
named
as
college
authorities
who
try
to
restrict
them,
and
dons
who
carry
out
research for the Ministry of Defence.
Reading
students
put
forward
the
motion
that
state
paid
funds
should
be
used
to
defend
students
who
have
fallen
foul
of
the
law.
The
British
taxpayer,
already
paying
for
the
education
of
the
brats
is
now
expected
to
pay
for
their
lawlessness.
It
is
not
supposed
that
our
country
as
yet
is
so
far
sunk
in
decadence
as
to
enfranchise
these
hoodlums
to
run
amok
and
smash
anyone
or
anything
they
please.
The
menace
lies
in
their
being
able
to
present
their
thuggish
aims
in
a
serious
resolution
to
be
debated
by
the
National
Union
of
Students.
It
shows
how
rapidly
madness
is
encroaching
on
institutions
established
to
serve
as
centres
of
enlightenment.
Taken
in
conjunction
with
the
disorders
rampant
in
so
many
schools,
colleges
and
universities
throughout
the
land,
the
lack
of
calibre
of
so
many
whose
job
it
is
to
maintain
order,
and
the
pathetic
leniency
of
so
many
magistrates
in
bending
over
backwards
to
pass
sentences,
which
are
a
mere
pretence
at
punishment.
One
would
expect
a
man
in
Edward
Short's
position
to
tighten
up
on
discipline
rather
than
diminish
it
almost
to
vanishing
point.
Parliament
is
seen
to
be
wildly
irresponsible,
damaging
to
the
nation
and
in
particular
its
youth.
It
is
easy
to
assume
that
the
violent
student
rioters
that
create
havoc
on
our
streets
have
nothing
in
common
with
parliament.
They
in
fact
work
together!
While
the
students
are
too
young
to
become
MP’s,
they
are
used
to
attack
groups
that
oppose
the
government’s
unpopular
policies.
The
media
always
overlooks
that
fact
that
it
is
the
student-rabble
that
always
makes
unprovoked
attacks,
on
members
of
the
public
who
dare
raise
objections
to
what
they
consider
hostile
anti-British
policies.
The
way
the
confrontation
is
misreported
ensures
that
the
public
will
reject
the
innocent
parties
thinking
they
are
to
blame.
Student
leaders
often
have
an
arrangement
with
the
Labour
and
Liberal
Parties
that
a
cabinet
place
will be found for them when they come of age.
The
time
has
come
for
Britons
to
declare
on
whose
side
they
stand
-
the
side
of
anarchy
or
law,
order
and
good sense.
The
decline
in
standards
has
been
created
deliberately.
The
change
was
most
noticeable
in
the
early
1960’s
when
a
mass
of
Marxist-trained
teachers
left
colleges
and
took
up
teaching
positions
in
secondary
modern
schools.
They
couldn’t
teach
to
previous
standards,
they
were
incapable
of
holding
their
students
attention
or
maintaining
order.
Many
of
the
older
schoolteachers
were
so
annoyed
and
frustrated
that
many
of
them
took
early
retirement.
Because
the
younger
generations
have
grown
up
with
unacceptable
conditions
they
too
readily
accept
it.
Our
enemy
knew
that
each
successive
generation
would
not
complain
because
they
have
grown
up
with
it
the
way
it
has
become.
The
anarchists
that
have
assumed
power
are
forever
writing
new
politically-correct
directives
for
civil
servants
and
schoolteachers
to
conform
to
or
get
the
sack.
For
decades
parliament
along
with
the
American
government
have
mobilised
our
military
to
attack
nations
that
were
not
our
enemies,
but
have
turned
a
blind
eye
to
the
enemy
within.
The
time
is
long
overdue for the public to speak out against this tyranny.
39
Last updated 20
th.
Nov 2017