Wot, No Classes?

But besides displaying a naiveté which might be charming in a two-year-old, the critic makes many assertions which are quite unjustifiable. For example, he claims that in a democratic community there should be no classes, disregarding the fact that in the community in which we live at present there is not only in fact a division of society into classes but that that division is rigidly enforced—as the labourer would soon discover if he desired to attend a government house ball or a garden party of the wealthy. This despite the fact that our journalist claims that Christ has dignified manual labour for all time. All the questionnaire set out to do was to find to what extent the pupils concerned were conscious of these distinctions actually existing, and the concensus of expert opinion is that it was well-designed for this purpose without in any way tending to imply the existence of such division or influence at all the opinions of those who were given the opportunity to answer it.

Discussion with the boys concerned proves that they understood the conditions of the questionnaire; while discussion with parents indicates that they are Not "concerned that there should be no repetition of this pernicious business."

It may be the policy of some papers to attack any kind of scientific social investigation but the public is at least entitled to demand that they shall previously have adequate knowledge of the subject involved, or, if that is too much to expect, that they have their articles on specialized subjects written by someone qualified to do so.