Excerpt from The Pilgrim's Progress to Culture

There are many young men nowadays who have a very sensible knowledge of their own ignorance. They have had a certain amount of schooling - the minimum required, and now their education is supposed to be complete, for they are wage-earners and business men, with no more need to learn. And yet what is the sum of their knowledge? Let us see. They can do a bit of arithmetic, sufficient anyway to carry them through the everyday affairs of life. They also know a thing or two about geography, at least of their own country. As for history, they know the names of the kings and queens of England and the presidents of the United States - or most of them - and a few old "chestnuts" such as Henry VIII having six wives - or eight, was it? - and King John losing the Crown Jewels in the Wash - probably through the dishonesty of his washerwoman. When they were at school they did a little parsing, a little Euclid, a little algebra, a little of sundry other things, but the memory of them has passed with the schooldays.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.