On the Pleasures of No Longer Being Very Young -C.A.

Humane Education

By George Sampson

Critical Appreciation

In the essay, Humane Education, George Sampson elaborates the necessity of a humane education for every individual. He describes how education is beneficial to a person and how it is the need of every man. His argument is simple: A humane education is the right of every person and it has nothing to do with the economy, or a person’s social status or occupation. To further enhance his viewpoint, he also explains how society directly or indirectly undermines this belief and acts against it.

According to the author, humane education is a necessity for every man. It is one of the fundamental rights which should be available to every person, whether rich or poor, affluent, or miserly, intelligent or dumb. Humane education does not necessarily mean an extraordinary amount of education but, it means elementary education- or in other words- the basics. It does not refer to a specialization in one field or another but enough so that a man will look al the world a different way, in an intellectual manner. Sampson dismisses the idea that child labor itself is “humane education”. Education functions to broaden a person’s mind while work only causes him to learn to serve.

Humane education, according to the author, has numerous benefits. Education allows a person to think more broadly, understand things he previously could not, make better judgments of people and things, and creates a thirst for knowledge and art. Education turns a nomad into a cultured man, a person who knows the meaning of life, and how to live life to its fullest extent.

George Sampson explains how different segments of society dissuade humane education. The city councilor does not want everyone to be educated. He believes that education is “socially dangerous” because if everyone will get an education, there will be no factory hands and manual laborers. An educated person would not want a lower paying job and rather opt for higher paying one. His concern is that education for all would upset the social and cultural system as well as the economy.

The teacher, the child’s door to education, argues Sampson, is neither an advocate of humane education. The teacher supports education but with a catch. From day one, every teacher ingrains in a student’s mind that education is all about work and money. A person should study so that he can get higher wages later on in life and a better job. The teacher explains to the students that an educated person is wealthier and is higher up the social ladder than an uneducated person.

Sampson, on the other hand, says that Humane Education is not about money or wealth. Humane education is about living a life in the literal sense whether a person is rich or poor, low, high or middle class. So, when a teacher says that education betters a person’s financial state, or a city councilor exclaims that universal education will cause a societal upheaval, they are both wrong. Their methods are different but they are both teaching the same wrong lesson. Education should be understood as a necessity of life, not a means for wealth, social status or power. As the author says,

“A humane education is a possession in which the rich and poor can be equal with our disturbance to their material possessions.”