These are the words of RH Tawney, quoted by the Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan in his renowned Ruskin College Speech on the 18 October 1976 as an answer to the question, ‘what do we want from the education of our children and young people?’
Exactly 40 years on, it is vital that parents ask this question with their heads and their hearts and make their voices heard to influence the state.
We are now used to Prime Ministers speaking out on education, yet Callaghan was aware of the new turf upon which he was treading and makes reference to those who inundated him with advice before the speech; “some helpful and others telling me less politely to keep off the grass”.Speaking in the recent aftermath of events around William Tyndale School, Callaghan had touched on tensions between progressive and traditional approaches to education, casting doubt on “new, informal methods of teaching”, yet looking askance at “those who claim to defend standards, but who in reality are simply seeking to defend old privileges and inequalities