The Camford Visitation E-Book

Herbert George Wells

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Wells’s treatise on education is set in the region of Camford (Cambridge/Oxford), and tells of a visitor who proves that education can save the world from destruction. The story centres around a Utopian ’ventriloquist’ who subjects human life and in particular its treatment by the University of Camford to sympathetic but quite unsparing scrutiny. At its core, it was a warning to the educational world of imminent war and of its lack of action, as well as an exploration of the place of education in society. Contents include: „Mr Trumber’s Experience”, „In the Cramb Meadows”, „Mr Preeders Pigeon-holes”, „The Communist Party is Annoyed in its Turn”, „Congregation Day”, and „The Healing Touch in History”. In this short tale of 75 pages Wells summarises many of his current preoccupations in the form of a parable which is noteworthy for its careful building up of atmosphere and its lively and biting characterisations.

Leseprobe

Contents

A CONTEMPORARY REVIEW OF "THE CAMFORD VISITATION"

I. THE UNEXPECTED VOICE

II. MR TRUMBER'S EXPERIENCE

III. IN THE CRAMB MEADOWS

IV. MR PREEDER'S PIGEON-HOLES

V. THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS ANNOYED IN ITS TURN

VI. CONGREGATION DAY

VII. THE HEALING TOUCH IN HISTORY

A CONTEMPORARY REVIEW OF “THE CAMFORD VISITATION”

MR. WELLS’s address as president of the Educational Science Section of the British Association last year dealt with certain aspects of education in the schools only. In his latest story, with its cover of dark and light blue, he deals with university education and its place in society. The story begins with an amusing sketch of a dyed-in-the-wool scholar, the master of Holy Innocents College, a preserver of culture, of true scholarship, born to appreciate without ever creating.

His breakfast oration has got to the stage of denouncing “the dictatorship of the half-educated. We are being endowed, Sir, and told what to know and teach, by the unholy wealth of ironmongers and the overblown profits of syndicated shop-keepers.”

Then enters the visitant as a voice, an unseen presence, asking: “Half-educated? Now how can you measure education and divide it into halves and quarters? What do you mean by education?...”

For the rest of the story the visitant subjects human life, and in particular its treatment by the University of Camford, to a sympathetic but quite unsparing scrutiny. The general thesis is an appeal to the universities to play a part in “so heroic an ordering of knowledge, so valiant a beating out of opinions, such a refreshment of teaching and such an organization of brains as will constitute a real and living world university, head, eyes and purpose for Man”.

–Nature, Februar 12, 1938