Lunacy

I have been reading a lot of G.K. Chesterton lately, and it is very thought provoking. Though the concept of modern homeschooling didn’t become popular until the 1980’s, Chesterton seems to champion it in his essay, “The Thing.” It made me think so much, that I made a little illustration for one specific paragraph of that essay. I usually think better in pictures than in words.  Without further ado, here are Chesterton’s own words, and a photo to go along with it”

“Some social reformers try to evade this difficulty, I know,
by some vague notions about the State or an abstraction called
Education eliminating the parental function. But this,
like many notions of solid scientific persons, is a wild illusion
of the nature of mere moonshine. It is based on that strange
new superstition, the idea of infinite resources of organisation.
It is as if officials grew like grass or bred like rabbits.
There is supposed to be an endless supply of salaried persons,
and of salaries for them; and they are to undertake all that human
beings naturally do for themselves; including the care of children.
But men cannot live by taking in each other’s baby-linen. They cannot
provide a tutor for each citizen; who is to tutor the tutors?
Men cannot be educated by machinery; and though there might be
a Robot bricklayer or scavenger, there will never be a Robot
schoolmaster or governess. The actual effect of this theory
is that one harassed person has to look after a hundred children,
instead of one normal person looking after a normal number of them.
Normally that normal person is urged by a natural force, which costs
nothing and does not require a salary; the force of natural
affection for his young, which exists even among the animals.
If you cut off that natural force, and substitute a paid bureaucracy,
you are like a fool who should pay men to turn the wheel of his mill,
because he refused to use wind or water which he could get for nothing.
You are like a lunatic who should carefully water his garden with
a watering-can, while holding up an umbrella to keep off the rain.”

G.K. Chesterson