Our English Syllabus

Lewis writes this piece to address the education system. He states that we work our whole lives towards leisure. That the point of working so hard is so that we can enjoy leisure. I agree with this. People have the motivation to work because they want to earn money. In doing so they try to make as much as they can to spend it in various ways, but almost all of them towards their own leisure time.

He also says that the point of an education is to create a good man or human. If you are not well-educated then you are not to be considered human. If you only train in a trade it is not enough. If training were to take over education then civilization itself would crumble. You need to have a balance of both, because we need the surgeons and electricians.

Lewis says that learning and an education are done in different ways then they are now. When you go off to a university, you should be asking yourself "what do I want to learn"? In doing so you are provoking yourself to learn as much as you can. The catch is that to understand one subject you need to understand a plethora of subjects. He highly suggests a liberal arts college type setting. There is also the suggestion that younger students find an elder student to study with. Don't bother the elder student to teach you, but learn from what he does. In doing so you are picking up thoughts and ideas that you might not have discovered otherwise. I think Lewis would approve of Calvin with some slight modifications in mind.