The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

204 People and Education for Human Rights
purposes and sentiment. Neither teachers, nor for that
matter writers, journalists or lawyers, apart from the
need to earn some bread, would engage in communication
and educational endeavour if they did not believe
that it was effective for their own development, the
development of others and the improvement of social
life. There is nothing new in emphasising the consequences
of education on public life and its use for that
purpose: from the time of Plato education was recognised
as the one indispensable requirement for a good
state, with knowledge and enlightenment being major
political forces leading towards improvement.
Qualifications must be placed on the ability of
education to shape individuals and the whole community.
Lest I be accused of making Francophobic
remarks, let me add some English names to the list of
thinkers about knowledge as leading to progress. Bacon,
Locke, Voltaire, Turgot, Condorcet and D'Holbach all
saw education as leading to a better society. It is a
measure of the power of Burke's rhetoric that we accept
that French Enlightenment thinkers literally believed in
the perfectibility of man- and that they would have
asserted that people will be cured of error by the mere
fact of bringing them the truth. Such writers knew there
were aspects of will and passion. If pressed, they would
have admitted too that a degree of self-deception seems
to be a human need. Even if over-optimistic about the
power of education, thinkers of the French and the
Scottish Enlightenments—with Adam Smith in particular
urging compulsory schooling and adverting to the duties
of the state —brought centre-stage again the idea that if
there is to be a transition to a materially and morally
better society, sound education is essential.
For the last 20 years the English educational system
has been afflicted by doubt whether values can with
propriety be taught. We are all aware of the well-worn