{"id":201,"date":"2010-03-27T21:40:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-27T21:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cslewis.com.br\/?p=201"},"modified":"2010-03-27T21:40:15","modified_gmt":"2010-03-27T21:40:15","slug":"irrigando-desertos-em-ingles-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/2010\/03\/27\/irrigando-desertos-em-ingles-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Irrigando Desertos: C.S. Lewis sobre a educa\u00e7\u00e3o (em ingl\u00eas)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Irrigating Deserts: C. S.   Lewis on Education<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">by Joel D. Heck<\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the most famous   quotations from the writings of C.S. Lewis  is the statement of Professor   Kirke early in <em>The Lion, the Witch  and the Wardrobe<\/em>, &#8220;I wonder   what they <em>do <\/em>teach them at  these schools.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Earlier in the same book, Kirke   had said, &#8220;Why  don\u2019t they teach logic at these schools?&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>The Professor speaks  almost the   same words at the end of the book, &#8220;Bless me, what <em>do <\/em>they  teach   them at these schools?&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>A fourth time the Professor  speaks about the inadequacy of schools   near the end of <em>The Last  Battle<\/em>, &#8220;. . . bless me, what <em>do <\/em>they   teach them at these  schools!&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Some will recall Miss Prizzle, the   teacher in a  modern school in <em>Prince Caspian<\/em>, who taught a   reconstructed  history that excluded the true history of Narnia.<strong> <\/strong>But we learn  little about Lewis\u2019s   views of education except that he had questions  about the quality of some   schools, the type of history that is taught,  and that logic was a desirable   subject for a curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>Well known from <em>Surprised   by Joy <\/em>are Lewis\u2019s own fond  reminiscences of his time with Kirkpatrick   and his horrid  reminiscences of Malvern.<strong> <\/strong>The more than casual reader of   Lewis  is also aware of the alternate title to <em>The Abolition of Man<\/em>,    namely <em>Reflections on education with special reference to the  teachers of   English in the upper forms of schools<\/em>.<strong> <\/strong>In that  book Lewis explains some   of what is wrong with modern education.<strong> <\/strong>Also  rather well known is the fact   that the hero of the Space Trilogy was  an educator, as the first page of <em>Out   of the Silent Planet <\/em>tells  us, &#8220;. . . he was a philologist, and   fellow of a Cambridge college.<strong> <\/strong>His name was Ransom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But what else do people   know about Lewis\u2019s views of education?<strong> <\/strong>This  paper intends to look more   closely and more systematically at the  views of Lewis, expressed in various   places in his writing, on  education.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I. Lewis\u2019s Own   Education\u2014His Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We begin with Lewis\u2019s own   education, for this allows us insight  into the origin of his views in his own   education.<strong> <\/strong>His    education began at home, both encouraged and modeled by his father.<strong> <\/strong>He  writes in <em>Surprised by Joy<\/em>,<\/p>\n<p>There   were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in  the cloakroom,   books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing,  books in a bedroom,   books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern  attic, books of all kinds   reflecting every transient stage of my  parents&#8217; interest, books readable and   unreadable, books suitable for a  child and books most emphatically not.   Nothing was forbidden me.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis\u2019s education at the   hands (or mind) of Arthur T. Kirkpatrick  formed him into the logical sparring   partner who would later become  famous among both the Inklings and the   Socratic Club at Oxford  University.<strong> <\/strong>&#8220;If ever a man came near to   being a purely logical  entity,&#8221; wrote Lewis, &#8220;that man was   Kirk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This passage from <em>Surprised   by Joy <\/em>summarizes the  Kirkpatrick regimen for Lewis with its strong   grounding in the  classics:<\/p>\n<p>Kirk did   not, of course, make me read nothing but Homer.<strong> <\/strong>The  Two Great Bores (Demosthenes   and Cicero) could not be avoided.<strong> <\/strong>There  were . . . Lucretius, Catullus,   Tacitus, Herodotus.<strong> <\/strong>There was  Virgil, for whom I had no true taste.<strong> <\/strong>There were Greek and Latin    compositions. . . .<strong> <\/strong>There were Euripedes, Sophocles, Aeschylus.<strong> <\/strong>In the evenings there was French   with Mrs. Kirkpatrick, treated  much as her husband treated Homer.<strong> <\/strong>We got through a great many  good   novels in this way and I was soon buying French books on my own .  . . . Later   in my career we branched out into German and Italian . . .  .<\/p>\n<p>But   Homer came first.<strong> <\/strong>Day after day and month after month we  drove gloriously onward, tearing   the whole Achilleid out of the Iliad  and tossing the rest on one side, and   then reading the Odyssey  entire, till the music of the thing and the clear,   bitter brightness  that lives in almost every formula had become part of me.<\/p>\n<p>His Oxford education at University   College was a liberal arts  education, including the study of the classics and   philosophy and  English language and literature (firsts in each of these three   areas).<strong> <\/strong>Lewis   once wrote about his education in philosophy, &#8220;To lose what  I owe to   Plato and Aristotle would be like the amputation of a limb.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that   all of Lewis\u2019s education was good, at least  in his own eyes.<strong> <\/strong>Almost legendary are his negative   experiences  at Wynyard School (which Lewis called Belsen after the Nazi    Concentration Camp).<strong> <\/strong>Of his time at Wynyard, he wrote, &#8220;In the  meantime, the putting   on of the school clothes was, I well knew, the  assumption of a prison   uniform.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>His time   at Malvern College,  though not as well appreciated by himself, was   nevertheless probably a  strong education, as Warnie testified.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, in general, C.S.   Lewis received a marvelous education and  excelled at it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>II. Lewis in   Education\u2014His Authority<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Especially those in   higher education can learn from an educator of  such a magnitude as C.S.   Lewis.<strong> <\/strong>Lewis   himself was an  educator, having spent twenty-nine years as a Fellow at Oxford    University (1925-1954) and nine years as a Professor at Cambridge  University   (1954-1963) until his retirement.<strong> <\/strong>Those thirty-three  years of personal   experience in higher education brought him face to  face with opposing views,   some of them from colleagues, some of them  from students, and some of them in   the writings of others.<strong> <\/strong>He  received four honorary doctorates in recognition of his many    accomplishment even though he never achieved an earned doctorate.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis the educator   expressed himself especially in his prolific  writings and in his lectures.<strong> <\/strong>The next section will concentrate    on his writings.<strong> <\/strong>Here, a few words about the impact of his  lectures, many of which   turned into books, are in order.<strong> <\/strong>Numerous  testimonies attest to the popularity   of Lewis as a lecturer, e.g.  Kathryn Linkskoog\u2019s comment regarding his time   in Oxford, &#8220;The big  hall in Magdalen was so full when Lewis lectured   that people even sat  on the window sills.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>When he gave his inaugural lecture   at  Cambridge &#8220;the largest lecture room in Mill Lane was packed and   people  coming late had to sit on the floor.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Lewis attracted students  not only   because of the content of his lectures, but also because of  the force of his   rhetoric so that in his teaching he modeled the  combination of head and heart   mentioned below.<\/p>\n<p><strong>III.<\/strong> <strong>Lewis on Education\u2014His Views<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Central to Lewis\u2019s views   of education are, first, the purpose of  education, secondly the importance of   objective truth, and thirdly,  the need to reach both the head and the heart.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">The Purpose of   Education<\/span><\/p>\n<p>First, Lewis writes about   the purpose of education, which is tied  closely to the liberal arts.<\/p>\n<p>Schoolmasters   in our time are fighting hard in defence of education  against vocational training;   universities, on the other hand, are  fighting against education on behalf of   learning.<\/p>\n<p>Let me   explain. The purpose of education has been described by  Milton as that of   fitting a man \u2018to perform justly, skillfully, and  magnanimously all the   offices both private and public, of peace and  war.\u2019 Provided we do not   overstress \u2018skillfully\u2019 Aristotle would  substantially agree with this, but   would add the conception that it  should also be a preparation for leisure,   which according to him is  the end of all human activity. \u2018We wage war in   order to have peace; we  work in order to have leisure.\u2019 Neither of them would   dispute that  the purpose of education is to produce the good man and the good    citizen, though it must be remembered that we are not here using the  word   \u2018good\u2019 in any narrowly ethical sense. The \u2018good man\u2019 here means  the man of   good taste and good feeling, the interesting and interested  man, and almost   the happy man. .\u00a0.\u00a0. Vocational training, on the  other hand,   prepares the pupil not for leisure, but for work; it aims  at making not a   good man but a good banker, a good electrician, a good  scavenger, or a good   surgeon. You see at once that education is  essentially for freemen and   vocational training for slaves.<\/p>\n<p>That purpose is supported   by an emphasis upon the liberal arts  rather than vocational training.<strong> <\/strong>In <em>The Discarded Image<\/em>,    Lewis writes about the emphasis upon the liberal arts among the  medievals.<\/p>\n<p>. . .   the syllabus was regarded as immutable;* the number seven is  numinous; the   Liberal Arts, by long prescription, had achieved a  status not unlike that of   nature herself.<strong> <\/strong>The Arts,   no less  than the Virtues and Vices, were personified.<strong> <\/strong>Grammar, with her  birth, still   sits looking down on the cloisters of Magdalen.<strong> <\/strong>Dante  in the <em>Convivio <\/em>most   mortises the Arts into the cosmic  framework.<strong> <\/strong>Rhetoric, for example, corresponds   to Venus; for one  reason, because she is \u2018the loveliest of all other   disciplines.\u2019 . . .  Arithmetic is like Sol; for as he gives light to all the   other stars  so she gives light to all other sciences, and as our eyes are   dazzled  by his light so our intelligence is baffled by the infinity of    numbers.<strong> <\/strong>And so of   the rest (II, xiii).<\/p>\n<p>Everyone   knows that the Arts are Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric,  Arithmetic, Music,   Geometry, and Astronomy.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Objective Truth<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Secondly, the <em>Tao<\/em>,   &#8220;. . . the doctrine of objective value,  the belief that certain   attitudes are really true, and others really  false. . . .,&#8221; is present   in virtually every religion.<strong> <\/strong>Throughout  <em>The Abolition of Man<\/em>, Lewis argues against the   subjective  values that are based on feelings and in favor of &#8220;the   objective  values that differentiate between right and wrong and thus provide   the  true way to assess attitudes and behavior.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>He argues that the  head must rule   the belly through the chest.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of education,   as described above, according to Milton  and Aristotle, underscores the good,   whereas the writers of <em>The  Green Book <\/em>prefer to discuss the emotional   state of the speaker  rather than the values of the speaker and philosophize   against the  dangers of emotion.<strong> <\/strong>The students learn nothing about English or    literature in the process.<strong> <\/strong>&#8220;In filling their book with it they  have been unjust to the   parent or headmaster who buys it and who has  got the work of amateur   philosophers where he expected the work of  professional grammarians.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>In education, &#8220;When all that   says  \u2018it is good\u2019 has been debunked, what says \u2018I want\u2019 remains.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>&#8220;The  practical result of   education in the spirit of <em>The Green Book<\/em>,&#8221;  writes Lewis,   &#8220;must be the destruction of the society which accepts  it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Both Head and Heart<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Thirdly, Lewis was both   the rationalist and the imaginative writer,  and both of those sides of Lewis   are amply illustrated in <em>Surprised  by Joy <\/em>(on the one hand, Kirke and   Lewis\u2019s early atheism, and on  the other hand, Northernness, poetry, Wagner,   Celtic and Greek  mythology).<strong> <\/strong>The early Lewis was the student of a man who came  close to being pure   rational thought, even though he experienced  glimpses of desire in those   years, and the later Lewis, having had his  imagination baptized by George   MacDonald, saw imagination as one of  the keys to communication.<strong> <\/strong>Lewis is purported to have   written,  &#8220;Reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the   organ of  meaning.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>I would state it this way: the intellect speaks to the  cognitive   domain of human learning, while imagination speaks to the  affective domain of   human learning; the former speaks to the head,  while the latter speaks to the   heart.<strong> <\/strong>D. M.   Baillie, Dean of  the Faculty of Divinity, described Lewis as a man who   reflected &#8220;a new  kind of marriage between theological reflection and   poetic  imagination&#8221; in the ceremony in which Lewis received a Doctor of    Divinity from the University of St Andrews.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lewis\u2019s own poems   speaks of reason and imagination, &#8220;Set on  the soul\u2019s acropolis the   reason stands . . . So clear is reason.<strong> <\/strong>But  how dark, imagining . . . Who   make in me a concord of the depth and  height?<strong> <\/strong>Who make imagination\u2019s dim   exploring touch Ever report  the same as intellectual sight?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In writing against the   perspective of <em>The Green Book<\/em>, Lewis  states, &#8220;. . . Gaius and   Titius . . . conclude that the best thing  they can do is to fortify the minds   of young people against emotion.<strong> <\/strong>My own experience as a teacher tells an   opposite tale.<strong> <\/strong>For  every   one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of  sensibility there are   three who need to be awakened from the slumber  of cold vulgarity.<strong> <\/strong>The task of the modern educator is   not to  cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>We must irrigate  deserts by   teaching an appropriate use of emotion, for emotion always  aids education,   functioning as a servant rather than a master.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond these four key   concepts, however, lie other Lewisian  concerns.<strong> <\/strong>For example, Lewis was concerned   about the negative  effects of the self-esteem movement, the dumbing down of   the  curriculum, the rewarding of the lazy, and the holding back of the  gifted   (the negative side of egalitarianism), at the elementary levels  as well as in   higher education, is clear in the remarks of Screwtape  in <em>Screwtape   Proposes A Toast<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p>In that   promising land the spirit of <em>I\u2019m as good as you <\/em>has  already become   something more than a generally social influence. It  begins to work itself   into their educational system . . . . The basic  principle of the new   education is to be that dunces and idlers must  not be made to feel inferior   to intelligent and industrious pupils.  That would be   &#8220;undemocratic.&#8221; These differences between the pupils\u2014for  they are   obviously and nakedly <em>individual <\/em>differences\u2014must be  disguised. This   can be done on various levels. At universities,  examinations must be framed   so that nearly all the students get good  marks. Entrance examinations must be   framed so that all, or nearly  all, citizens can go to universities, whether   they have any power (or  wish) to profit by higher education or not. At   schools, the children  who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and   mathematics and  elementary science can be set to doing the things that   children used  to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies   and  call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that    they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense  they are   engaged in must have\u2014I believe the English already use the    phrase\u2014&#8221;parity of esteem.&#8221; An even more drastic scheme is not  impossible.   Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be  artificially kept   back, because the others would get a <em>trauma<\/em>\u2014Beelzebub,  what a useful   word!\u2014by being left behind. The bright pupil thus  remains democratically   fettered to his own age group throughout his  school career, and a boy who   would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or  Dante sits listening to his   coeval\u2019s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT  ON A MAT.<\/p>\n<p>These views will be   addressed in what follows.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Model Schools<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lewis attacked the modern   theory of \u2018democratic\u2019 or \u2018progressive\u2019  education in his essay   &#8220;Democratic Education,&#8221; originally entitled  &#8220;Notes on the   Way.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Lewis   reminded us that Aristotle taught  that democratic education meant, not the   education that most democrats  like, but &#8220;the education which will   preserve democracy.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Some  want an education that is democratic only in the sense of being    egalitarian\u2014one that ignores the differences between &#8220;the able and    diligent boys&#8221; and &#8220;the stupid and idle ones.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Lewis thought  there were two ways   of doing this: one is to abolish all compulsory  subjects that show the   differences between the boys, and the other is  to make the curriculum so   broad that every boy will succeed at  something.<strong> <\/strong>The object is that no boy will   feel inferior.<\/p>\n<p>Model Schools, reflections   of progressive ideas in education, were  frequent targets in the writings of   Lewis.<strong> <\/strong>The   Narnian  chronicles occasionally mentioned &#8220;. . . fat foreign children   doing  exercises in model schools.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Some of the characters in the    Narnian chronicles went wrong at model schools had troubles there.<strong> <\/strong>Of  Edmund, both early and late in   TLWW, Lewis writes, first in the mouth  of Peter, &#8220;You\u2019ve always liked   being beastly to anyone smaller than  yourself; we\u2019ve seen that at school   before now.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Later Lewis  wrote, &#8220;.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0in fact ever since his   first term at that horrid school  which was <em>where he had begun to go wrong<\/em>.<strong> <\/strong>He had become  his real old self   again and could look you in the face.<strong> <\/strong>And  there on the field of battle   Aslan made him a Knight.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>The lack  of discipline in those schools was   one object of Lewis\u2019s criticism.<strong> <\/strong>After Reepicheep swatted Eustace with the   side of his rapier,  Lewis wrote, &#8220;Eustace (of course) was at a school   where they didn\u2019t  have corporal punishment . . . .&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the end of <em>The   Silver Chair <\/em>Aslan comes with Caspian,  Eustace, and Jill into this world   to visit Experiment House.<strong> <\/strong>\u2018They  shall see only my back,\u2019 says the Lion.<strong> <\/strong>After he caused the wall  of the   school to fall down, \u2018he lay down amid the gap he had made in  the wall and   turned his golden back to England, and his lordly face  towards his own lands\u2019   (ch. XVI).<strong> <\/strong>The   bullies from Experiment  House rush toward them, but when they see the back of   the Lion and  the figures in glittering clothes they are filled with terror.<strong> <\/strong>After  they are given a sound   thrashing they run and get the Head who, when  she sees the Lion and the   others, becomes hysterical.<strong> <\/strong>All this  eventually results in Experiment House becoming a better   school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lewis\u2019s disdain for the   athletic side of schools is well known, as  is the lack of a joint in his   thumbs, which made him unathletic; he  was never good at games.<strong> <\/strong>He once wrote to his father,   &#8220;. . .  but if it comes to school mastering, my inability to play games   will  count against me.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>Today he would undoubtedly champion those who  have challenged many   large universities to place the education of  their students ahead of success   on the athletic fields.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, model   schools were places where Christianity was  discouraged.<strong> <\/strong>Lewis wrote in <em>The Silver Chair<\/em>,   When I was  at school one would have said, &#8220;I swear by the Bible.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>But  Bibles were not encouraged at   Experiment House.<strong> <\/strong>Elsewhere Lewis  wrote of the value of a clear presentation of the   Christian faith,  stating that &#8220;the content of, and the case for,   Christianity, are not  put before most schoolboys under the present system;   and secondly,  that when they are so put a majority find them   acceptable.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>He  is cautious, however, that not only will Christianity not be put    before most schoolboys, but that Christianity will be discriminated  against,   something we are seeing in our day and age.<\/p>\n<p>Writing to his father in   1929, Lewis summarized his view of  education in the public schools,   &#8220;Except for pure classics . . . I  really don\u2019t know what gifts the   public schools bestow on their  nurslings, beyond the mere surface of good   manners: unless contempt of  the things of the intellect, extravagance,   insolence,  self-sufficiency, and sexual perversion are to be called gifts. .   . .&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">The Curriculum<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Philology, linguistic   history, linguistic theory, logic, rhetoric,  classics, French, history,   philosophy, religion, literature, art,  mathematics, biology\u2014these are the   subjects Lewis wanted in the  curriculum, in short, the liberal arts.<strong> <\/strong>Sports, historicism,  scientific   materialism, physiology\u2014these are the subjects which Lewis  would exclude.<strong> <\/strong>He would prefer fewer subjects   taught well  rather than many subjects taught superficially.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u2018While I yet   pondered,\u2019&#8221; writes Lewis, &#8220;came the news of a  substantial   alteration in the English Schools. That course had  formerly included a great   deal of philology and linguistic history and  theory: these are now being   thrown over and formed into a separate  school, while what remains is simply   literature in the ordinary  sense\u2014with the exception of learning to read a   very few selected  passages of Anglo-Saxon, which anyone can do in a month. In   such a  course, I should start knowing more of the subject than some do at the    end: it ought to be a very easy proposition compared with Greats. All  these   considerations have tended to confirm what my tutor advised in  the first   place . . . but if it comes to school mastering, <em>my  inability to play   games will count against me<\/em>. Above all, I hope  it is clear that in no   case will Greats be wasted.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a 1922 letter to his   father, Lewis spoke highly of philology,  linguistic history, and theory,   while he also includes classics and  history as part of a good education when   he puts critical words  against them into the mouth of Weston in <em>Out of the   Silent Planet<\/em>.<strong> <\/strong>Through the mouth of Professor Kirke, Lewis argues also for logic  when   the Professor says, &#8220;Why don\u2019t they teach logic at these schools?<strong> <\/strong>There are only three   possibilities.<strong> <\/strong>Either   your sister  is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the   truth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That Lewis is not   anti-science, but opposes &#8220;scientific materialism  raised to a philosophy   and imposed on society and morals&#8221; is clear  also from Mark Studdock, of   whom Lewis wrote in <em>That Hideous  Strength<\/em>, &#8220;. . . his education   has had the curious effect of  making things that he read and wrote more real   to him than things he  saw.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong>He was a man whose &#8220;education had been   neither scientific  nor classical\u2014merely \u2018Modern.\u2019 The severities of both   abstraction and  of high human tradition had passed him by. . . . He was . . .   a glib  examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Abstraction (logic,   philosophy [Plato, Aristotle]) and high human  tradition (literature [Dante,   Milton, Yeats, and others], classics  [Greek, Latin], history, religion) are   those subjects which help the  individual to learn to think.<\/p>\n<p>In a dairy entry dated 2 November   1922, Lewis wrote, &#8220;Went to the  Schools library. Here I puzzled for the   best of two hours over  phonetics, back voice stops, glides, glottal catches   and open  Lord-knows-whats. Very good stuff in its way, but why physiology    should form part of the English school I really don\u2019t know . . .<\/p>\n<p>Writing his essay   &#8220;Learning in War-Time,&#8221; Lewis indirectly states  the value of the   study of literature, art, mathematics, and biology,  &#8220;He must ask himself   how it is right, or even psychologically  possible, for creatures who are   every moment advancing either to  heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of   the little time allowed  them in this world on such comparative trivialities   as literature or  art, mathematics or biology.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">The Inner Ring<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lewis never appreciated   the cliqueishness of schools, whether as a  student or a professor.<strong> <\/strong>Lewis wrote about the various   groups he  faced at Malvern College as a fifteen-year-old, including the    athletes, &#8220;The whole school was a great temple for the worship of these    mortal gods; and no boy ever went there more prepared to worship them  than   I.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During his undergraduate   days at University College Lewis wrote in  his diary, &#8220;After lunch I   bicycled again to Schools to seek out the  library of the English school.<strong> <\/strong>I found it at the top of many  stories,   inhabited by a strange old gentleman who seems to regard it  as his private   property . . .&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then, as a tutor and   later a professor, he met the same Inner Ring  at Oxford and Cambridge,   appreciating neither.<strong> <\/strong>One of the clear  concerns of Lewis is reflected by the very different   examples of Dr.  Dimble and Mark Studdock, two professors of the University of    Edgestow.<strong> <\/strong>Compare   Dr. Dimble, a professor at Northumberland  College, part of the University of   Edgestow, with Dr. Curry, a  professor of Bracton College, also of the   University of Edgestow, and  part of the Progressive Element at Bracton.<strong> <\/strong>Mark seeks to gain  entrance into   that circle.<strong> <\/strong>While   much more could be written  on this topic, the point is that education of   students should be the  chief concern of the faculty, not jockeying for   position.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While his views on   education are not well known, C.S. Lewis wrote  about the loss of the liberal   arts, the loss of objective truth, the  negative effect of democratizing the   curriculum, the lack of  discipline, and the problem of the Inner Ring.<strong> <\/strong>But he did not  simply criticize;   he also promoted a particular approach to education  that emphasized a few   subjects in depth rather than many subjects  covered briefly.<strong> <\/strong>While he did not expect British   society to  champion the truths of Christianity in the classroom, he   nevertheless  encouraged the religious side of education as a crucial part of   the  moral fabric of society.<strong> <\/strong>He also wrote about the importance of  both reason and imagination in   the learning process, and he modeled  that in his teaching.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Walter   Hooper, ed.. <em>Letters of C.S. Lewis<\/em>. Glasgow:  HarperCollins Publishers,   1966.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;The Life of C.S. Lewis,&#8221; in <em>C.S. Lewis: Companion &amp;  Guide<\/em>,   San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996.<\/p>\n<p>Howard,   Thomas. <em>C.S. Lewis: Man of Letters<\/em>. San Francisco:  Ignatius Press,   1987.<\/p>\n<p>Carolyn   Keefe. &#8220;Education,&#8221; in <em>The C.S. Lewis Readers\u2019  Encyclopedia<\/em>,   Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998, p. 149.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis, <em>C.S.<\/em> &#8220;Answers to Questions on Christianity.&#8221; In <em>God  in the Dock<\/em>.   Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;The Idea of an English School.&#8221; In <em>Rehabilitations<\/em>.  London:   Oxford University Press, 1939.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;The Inner Ring.&#8221; In <em>Transposition and Other Addresses<\/em>.    London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;Membership.&#8221; In <em>Fern-Seed and Elephants and other essays  on   Christianity<\/em>, edited by Walter Hooper, Glasgow, Great Britain:  William   Collins Sons &amp; Co. Ltd., 1975.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;Learning in War-Time.&#8221; In <em>Fern-Seed and Elephants and  other   essays on Christianity<\/em>, edited by Walter Hooper, Glasgow,  Great Britain:   William Collins Sons &amp; Co. Ltd., 1975.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;Notes on the Way.&#8221; In <em>Present Concerns <\/em>as &#8220;Democratic    Education.&#8221; Edited by Walter Hooper. San Diego: Harcourt Brace    Jovanovich, 1986. Pages 32-36.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;Our English Syllabus.&#8221; In <em>Rehabilitations<\/em>. London:  Oxford   University Press, 1939.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;On the Reading of Old Books.&#8221; In <em>God in the Dock<\/em>.  Grand   Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970.<strong> <\/strong>Pages 200-207.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014.   &#8220;Revival or Decay?&#8221; In <em>God in the Dock<\/em>. Grand Rapids:    Eerdmans, 1970.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014. <em>Surprised   by Joy<\/em>. <em>: The Shape of My Early Life<\/em>.  San Diego: Harcourt Brace   Jovanovich, 1955.<\/p>\n<p>Lindskoog,   Kathryn. <em>C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian<\/em>. 4<sup>th<\/sup> ed. Chicago:   Cornerstone Press, 1997.<em> <\/em>Especially Chapter 16,  &#8220;Education.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014. <em>Journey   into Narnia<\/em>. Pasadena, CA: Hope Publishing  House, 1998.<\/p>\n<p>Martindale,   Wayne and Jerry Root. <em>The Quotable Lewis<\/em>.  Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale   House, 1989.<\/p>\n<p>Schultz,   Jeffrey D. and John G. West, Jr., eds. <em>The C.S. Lewis  Readers\u2019   Encyclopedia<\/em>, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nesse artigo, Heck analisa um lado pouco conhecido pelos leitores de Lewis, que \u00e9 o de educador. \u00c0 semelhan\u00e7a de sua amiga em Oxford e no clube a que pertenciam, os Inklings, eles defendiam o retorno do curr\u00edculo das artes liberais, praticado nas &#8220;escolas&#8221; desde a Antiguidade at\u00e9 a Idade M\u00e9dia. A pedagogia do grupo era coerente n\u00e3o apenas com essas teorias, mas tamb\u00e9m com a sua pr\u00e1tica, sempre preocupada em unir raz\u00e3o com imagina\u00e7\u00e3o.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29089],"tags":[29153,29179,29194,29228,29232,29252,29259,29293,29330,29334,29352,29372],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contribuicoes-de-amigos-de-c-s-lewis","tag-classics","tag-dialectic","tag-education","tag-grammar","tag-head-and-heart","tag-liberal-arts-curriculum","tag-logic","tag-objective-truth","tag-retoric","tag-schools","tag-surprised-by-joy","tag-vocation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimato.com.br\/sites\/cslewis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}