Education and the Good Life by Bertrand Russell

After the summer holidays in the fifteenth year, I shall assume that a boy or girl who so desires is allowed to specialize, and that this will be done in a large proportion of cases. But where there is no definite preference, it will be better to prolong an all-round education. And in exceptional cases specializing may begin earlier. All rules, in education, should be capable of being broken for special reasons. But I think that, as a general rule, pupils of more than average intelligence should begin to specialize at about fourteen, while pupils of less than average intelligence should usually not specialize at all at school, unless in the way of vocational training. I am refraining, in this book, from saying anything on this subject. But I do not believe that it ought to begin before fourteen, and I do not think that, even then, it ought to take up the whole of the school time of any pupil.

I do not propose to discuss how much time it should take up, or whether it should be given to all pupils or only to some. These questions raise economic and political issues which are only indirectly connected with education, and which cannot be discussed briefly. I therefore confine myself to the scholastic education in the years after fourteen.