Education and the Good Life by Bertrand Russell

The questions: what should be taught? and how should it be taught? are intimately connected, because, if better methods of teaching are devised, it is possible to learn more. In particular, more can be learnt if the pupils wish to learn than if they regard work as a bore. I have already said something about methods, and I shall say more in a later chapter. For the present, I shall assume that the best possible methods are employed, and I shall consider what ought to be taught.

When we consider what an adult ought to know, we soon realize that there are things which everybody ought to know, and other things which it is necessary that some should know, though others need not. Some must know medicine, but for the bulk of mankind it is sufficient to have an elementary knowledge of physiology and hygiene. Some must know higher mathematics, but the bare elements suffice for those to whom mathematics is distasteful. Some should know how to play the trombone, but mercifully it is not necessary that every school-child should practise this instrument. In the main, the things taught at school before the age of fourteen should be among those that every one ought to know; apart from exceptional cases, specialization ought to come later. It should, however, be one of the aims of education before fourteen to discover special aptitudes in boys and girls, so that, where they exist, they may be carefully developed in the later years.