Category Archives: the arts

English education: the roots of its politicisation

When I left school in the mid-sixties the Empire was effectively finished – the final nail in the coffin of imperial feeling was banged in by our entry into the EU in 1972,  which alienated the  white dominions – and a new spirit of anti-Establishment feeling was beginning to erode school discipline. But progressive ideals had not yet taken hold the  educational establishment and the comprehensive disaster was only in its infancy. The school leaving exams, the O and A Levels, were a real test of competence in both their subjects and of  the literacy and numeracy of candidates. To take but one example of the difference between then and now: even O Level science exams had, for 16-year-olds, demanding practicals as well as written papers. 

By the mid seventies the grammar schools had been reduced to a rump of a few hundred. Ironically, most of those which had converted to  comprehensive schools or which had chosen to become private schools to preserve their status,  had been forced to change by a supposedly conservative government, that of Ted Heath, whose education minister was  Margaret  Thatcher.  The  failure  of  Heath  to  stop comprehensivisation  was a harbinger of what was to happen under the future Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major.

Comprehensivisation

The comprehensive ideal  is not innately wrong.  Children of very widely differing abilities can be successfully taught  together. Traditionally, the greatest public schools  in England have been  comprehensives of a sort.  They took boys who varied from the exceptionally bright to the stonewall stupid and managed largely  to successfully educate both groups and all those in between.  The very bright won scholarships to Oxbridge, while the stonewall stupid  at least left school functionally literate.

But these schools were hopeless models for a  state comprehensive system. They drew almost all of their pupils from the middle and upper classes  and the resources available to the schools from fees and endowments vastly outstripped any that could ever be available to state funded schools. The social class of the pupils meant that the pupils had expectations of being in the higher reaches of society when they entered adult life and parents who actively wanted and expected their children to be educated. To these advantages were added  greatly  superior financial resources which permitted the recruitment of first rate staff, small classes and personal tuition.

A general comprehensive system lacks the advantages of a great public school.  Most of the schools will be dominated by the children of the working class simply because they are by far the most numerous.  That would be true even if all private schools were abolished and “bussing” of middle and upper class children was enforced to ensure that schools were socially mixed.

Inevitably the adult expectations of working class children tend to be lower than those of the middle and upper classes. Their parents are generally less supportive of the idea of education. A significant minority are actively hostile to their children becoming better educated than they are because it divorces the children from their workingclass roots.  Few will be able to provide active academic  assistance to their children.  Those facts alone make mixed ability teaching difficult. Add in the much smaller financial resources available to state schools – which expresses itself in larger classes, a narrower curriculum and, on average,  less able and  less  well motivated staff  – and you have a recipe for low educational attainment. In such schools the bright and academically interested  pupils often become isolated, under-challenged intellectually  and frequently bullied, while the duller,  non-academic majority  are allowed to plough an educational furrow,  which stretches from  academic inadequacy to an outright failure of education. 

In practice comprehensivisation was much worse than that.  Bussing was not enforced.  The better off continued to send their children to fee-paying  schools – today approximately 7 per cent  of  our schoolchildren are privately educated, a higher proportion than in the 1960s when many middleclass parents were happy to send their children to state grammar schools. (It is a grand irony that comprehensivisation rescued the public schools,  many of which were  struggling to maintain numbers by 1965).

Social segregation by the use of fee-paying schools was amplified both by the natural segregation of social classes into geographical areas – in the absence of enforced “bussing” a middle class suburb will have a local school which is largely filled with middleclass children – and by the widespread practice of middle class parents moving to areas where good state schools were available. The consequence has been a state school system which is heavily segregated by class, with the schools dominated by the working class tending to be the lowest achieving.

The subversion of the social mixing part of the comprehensive ideal was further  complicated by mass immigration. This introduced not only racial and ethnic conflict into schools, a toxic enough disruptive element in itself, but also created grave practical problems  because so many of the immigrant children did not have a competence in English.  The  official promotion of multiculturalism and  its concomitant  idea  that any member of an  ethnic  minority  is  automatically a victim of white society  complicated the position further, not least in the area of discipline. Ethnic minorities soon realised  that in the context of an  official  sponsorship  of “victimhood”  they could get away with more and more. Native English  children seeing this, naturally enough, also became more inclined to  misbehave. 

Because immigrants settled almost entirely in large towns and cities, these problems were and are confined almost exclusively to schools where the white pupils were workingclass, who found  their already inferior opportunities for education further reduced. Worse,  immigration was the final lever which allowed progressive education to not only gain absolute ascendency in the English state  educational system, but to transform the progressive ideal into an overt political ideology, the ideology we know today as political correctness.

English education in saner times

I was born in 1947. Never, perhaps, has England (and Britain) been more of a coherent community.  The dramatic recent experience of the Second World War  filled the minds of everyone  and that  shared experience  bound together even more tightly  a very racially and culturally homogenous country.  It was rare to see a black or brown face even in London, and any suggestion that someone from a racial or cultural minority should do anything but  their best to assimilate into English culture would have been generally thought to touch the confines of lunacy. It was a very English, very British world. 

It was a time when Britain made most of the manufactured goods that it consumed, including its own cars, aircraft, ships, and it would have been thought extraordinary for a British Government to fail to protect British industry.  Great industrial names such as Austin (cars) and  Fry’s (chocolate) were not only English-owned and English made but leaders in the English market.  The shops which people used were generally owned by the English and more often than not family enterprises.  Every day an inhabitant of England  was reminded that  they were members of an advanced technological society which could make or grow what it wanted and that most of what they consumed was made in England (or at least Britain) or came from the Empire. 

The idea of Empire was still important – just. The fifties were the very last moment when an English boy could grow up with an  imperial consciousness as part of everyday life. There was no assumption that the Empire would collapse. India might have gone in 1947, but the assumption amongst both the general population and the political elite was that Britain would have to bear “the white man’s burden”  for many  a long year yet.  That will seem extraordinary to the point of fantasy now, but  it is true. In the forties and fifties  the Foreign and Colonial Office continued to  recruit and train young men for careers  as imperial servants such as District Officers and white  emigration from Britain to places such as Kenya and Rhodesia was officially encouraged. 

Against this background English schools taught as a matter of course a curriculum that extolled English and British values, history and culture.  History for the English child was British and imperial history first with  European history a poor second. Geography was concerned primarily with the physical and demographic demography of Britain.  English literature concentrated on the classic English texts from Chaucer through to Trollope.

But it was not simply English history and culture which was imparted. Whole class teaching was the norm with the teacher firmly in charge. Children were expected to acquire the factual knowledge of a subject as well as its process. Because discipline was not generally a problem, schools were primarily institutions to teach people rather than being the child-minding depots we all too often see today.  There is a good case for saying that the general standard of English education was never higher than in the quarter century between 1945 and 1970. This was not only because of the good overall educational standard, but because  all pupils, unlike the pre-war system, now got a secondary education as of right.

That is not to say everything in the post-war educational garden was lovely.  Before comprehensive education began under the first  Wilson Government,  English state education was divided between grammar schools, secondary moderns and a small number of technical schools – the last were intended as training grounds for artisans, to use an old fashioned word.  The consequence was to lower, irrevocably in most instances,  the social horizons and aspirations of those who did not  pass the 11-plus and go to grammar schools, because it was very difficult to move to a grammar school after the age of 11.  It also created a sense of inferiority and resentment amongst many 11-plus failures.

Despite these shortcomings,  the system was unreservedly to be preferred to what we have today. The grammar schools not only produced a  genuinely educated class, but provided  an escape  route  to something better for clever children from even the poorest backgrounds.  That opportunity grew with the significant expansion of university and polytechnic places in the fifties and sixties. In 1950 approximately  2 per cent of English school-leavers went on to higher education: by 1970, following the implementation of the Robbins Report (1963), the figure was approximately  7 per cent (and this was the age of the post-war baby-boomer generation, so there were more pupils in the age group in 1970 than 1950).  Most tellingly, in the 1960s, before the destruction of the grammar schools,  workingclass children in higher education  formed a greater proportion of the whole student body than it does now – there are more workingclass students now, but that is simply a consequence of the vast increase in those in higher education to more than 40 per cent.

English state education – a project to culturally cleanse the English

Ask an English child of 2011 about the iconic dates of English history such as Hastings, Blenheim and Waterloo and your chances of getting a correct answer are very small. Quiz them on who was Alfred the Great  or ask them to describe the outcome of the Spanish Armada and the odds are that you will be met with blank stares. Pose a question relating to English geography such as the position of the Chilterns or the course of the Severn and a shrug of the shoulders is the likely outcome.  Mention a Shakespeare play or a Dickens novel and childish eyes are wont to roll. 

Sadly, the modern English child is more likely to be able to tell a questioner about the Muslim festival of Ramadan than relate the story of Easter. They will know more of the geography of Africa (if they know any geography at all) than of England. On the rare occasions when they are told about England’s history, it will only be in the context of the country’s “evil” past, with the Atlantic slave trade elevated to the status of the ultimate act of historical immorality and  the  Empire recounted as an unrelieved tale of the exploitation of native peoples.

The upshot is that we have several generations of English children who have commonly left school with next to no meaningful knowledge of their own history and higher culture. That applies not only to those who depart education with a basic school education at the age of 16, but even those who go on to university. Worse, their education is designed to leave them with, at best, a belief that they have nothing to be proud of because they are English, and,  at worst, that they should be thoroughly ashamed of the fact that they are English.

The conscious intent of the liberal elite is to create a belief amongst the English that they, of all peoples, are not worthy of a national identity. Most of the English do not actually believe this even at the intellectual level and  they still have a primal sense of being English  because  of Man’s innate tendency to associate with “the tribe”. But this is beside the point. By being denied  access to their history and culture, English children are left without a bedrock of conscious  cultural imprinting to build upon their natural and healthy communal instincts.  They are like children of good natural parts who have been denied schooling. 

Education, of course, is far more than academic study. It is about the general development of the child.  Modern psychological research consistently fingers the peer group as most potent influence on the development of a child, far more influential than the family.  Those who doubt this is might care to  reflect on the fact that children speak with the accent of their peer group not that of their parents.

The dominance of the peer group is vitally important because it means that children can potentially be manipulated en masse. If they do not take their view of the world from their parents – and children commonly reject their parents’ views – they have to take their view  from elsewhere. That leaves them vulnerable to elite propaganda, especially that pedalled by the mass media and schools. The important point here  is that parents as a class have many views, an elite ideology  has  one view. The danger is that the elite can succeed at least partially in forcing a single view of the world onto all or at least most children.

A peer group whose members have been properly socialised in their history and culture and who have been given a generally positive view of their society, will reinforce that view themselves. A group robbed of that knowledge and mentality will be less inclined – because they have less positive information and reinforcement about their “tribe”  –  to amplify what they glean from the adult world. They may build upon the negative propaganda ceaselessly fed to them by schools, by the media and by politicians and by the persistent promotion of other cultures as superior to their own. Most damagingly, they are in danger of being conditioned to believe that they, the native people of England, are but one ethnic group amongst many, that they have no special cultural claim within their own land.

If England is to survive as more than a geographical entity, it is essential that the young be imprinted with a knowledge of the  immense achievements of Britain in general and England in particular and a sense of what the English have been.

No nation can maintain itself if it does not have a profound sense of its worth. In a healthy society this sense of worth simply exists and children imbibe it unconsciously. Our society has been so corrupted by a  mistaken educational ideology and the liberal’s hatred of his own culture,  that a conscious programme of cultural imprinting  is necessary. If it is not done, how long will it be before English children express surprise when told they are speaking English and not American? The corrosion of English society can only be halted if pride of England and her achievements is instilled in the young.

The words of the younger Pitt in 1783 (following the disaster of the American War of Independence) seem peculiarly apt for our deracinated time:

We must recollect … what is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.

That the tribal  sense of English identity is still immensely strong can be seen in the way the English take the opportunity to publicly  express their patriotism in the only regular way left to them – through their support for sporting teams. The English fans of all the major team sports are truly amazing in their dedication to their national teams. Go to any football game or Test match  involving England  played overseas and you will see a support unmatched by any other travelling supporters. See how a forest of St George’s Crosses sprout when a football world cup is on. Marvel at the reception given to the England Rugby team after they returned as world champions.  It is also noteworthy that in recent years the English have taken the opportunity to come out in ever increasing numbers for occasional national  events such as the Queen’s Jubilee and the Queen Mother’s funeral, surely a sign of English national pride being frustrated in most other ways.  There is a generation of English children just waiting to be given their sense of historical place and culture back. All it needs is the political will to do it.

England was wealthy long before the Empire and the Slave Trade

Researchers at Warwick University led by  economist Professor Stephen Broadberry have concluded that Mediaeval England,  far from being a land of poverty-stricken peasants oppressed by a small aristocratic  elite,  was a prosperous land with a higher average per capita income more than double that of the poorest nations in the world today*  The results are published by the University of Warwick’s Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)in  a paper entitled British Economic Growth 1270-1870. www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/broadberry/wp/britishgdplongrun8a.pdf

The researchers  took as a benchmark an annual income of  $400 annually (as expressed in 1990 international dollars) , a measure often  used as a measure of “bare bones subsistence”.  They estimated  English per capita incomes in the late Middle Ages were around  $1,000 (again as expressed in 1990 dollars) and that even just before the Black Death, which first struck in 1348/49, they were  more than $800 using the same 1990 dollar measure.  This is significant because incomes rose significantly after the Black Death because of a dire shortage of labour.

In an interview with Science Daily  Professor  Broadberry,  said:

“Our work sheds new light on England’s economic past, revealing that per capita incomes in medieval England were substantially higher than the “bare bones subsistence” levels experienced by people living in poor countries in our modern world. The majority of the British population in medieval times could afford to consume what we call a “respectability basket” of consumer goods that allowed for occasional luxuries. By the late Middle Ages, the English people were in a position to afford a varied diet including meat, dairy produce and ale, as well as the less highly processed grain products that comprised the bulk of the “bare bones subsistence” diet.”

He also said: “Of course this paper focuses only on average per capita incomes. We also need to have a better understanding of the distribution of income in medieval England, as there will have been some people living at bare bones subsistence, and at times this proportion could have been quite substantial. We are now beginning research to construct social tables which will also reveal the distribution of income for some key benchmark years in that period”

“The research provides the first annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain between 1700 and 1870. Far more data are available for the pre-1870 period than is widely realised. Britain after the Norman conquest was a literate and numerate society that generated substantial written records, many of which have survived. As a result, the research was aided by a wide variety of records — among them manorial records, tithes, farming records, and probate records.”

Professor Broadberry further said that: “Our research shows that the path to the Industrial Revolution began far earlier than commonly has been understood. A widely held view of economic history suggests that the Industrial Revolution of 1800 suddenly took off, in the wake of centuries without sustained economic growth or appreciable improvements in living standards in England from the days of the hunter-gatherer. By contrast, we find that the Industrial Revolution did not come out of the blue. Rather, it was the culmination of a long period of economic development stretching back as far as the late medieval period.”  (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101205234308.htm)

Broadly, there is nothing tremendously new here, although the research  includes interesting work on the quantification of wealth in England before the Industrial Revolution with for the first time annual estimates of English GDP between 1270-1700.  From the advent of printing,   it was common for travellers in England who wrote and published  their experiences there to comment on the wealth of England generally  and the good condition of the poorer classes in particular.  Middle English literary works such as the Canterbury Tales and Piers Ploughman  (both 14th Century) also paint a picture of an England far from poor. To those literary sources can be added the evidence of the many magnificent mediaeval cathedrals and the plentiful supply of mediaeval castles  which both speak of considerable national wealth.

As for the notion that the Industrial Revolution suddenly sprang into the world  newly minted around 1760, this has always been treated by serious historians as a nonsense. It was clearly the culmination of a long period of economic accretion and social, legal and political  evolution.  (see  http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/england-and-the-only-bootstrapped-industrial-revolution-2/)

The estimates of mediaeval per capita income may even produce a false comparison between that time and place and the poorest countries today. Most would have had land to work on their own account, whether that be as a freeman or serf, and with that land would have come a place to live in. The same does not apply to the poorest countries today.

If there is nothing startlingly novel, the research is immensely valuable as an antidote to the idea constantly promoted in the mainstream media  that England only became rich because of the empire and slave trade and before those events was a poor and insignificant country.

*Poorest nations today per  capita income at 1990 dollar values – Zaire $249, Burundi $479, Niger $514, Central African Republic $536, Comoro Islands $549, Togo $606, Guinea Bissau $617, Guinea $628, Sierra Leone $686, Haiti at $686, Chad $706, Zimbabwe $779,  Afghanistan $869 

England and the Enlightenment

 In his book “Enlightenment:  Britain and the creation of the modern  world”, the  historian Roy Porter remarks how peculiar it is  “that  historians have  so  little  to say about the role of  English  thinkers   in  the European  Enlightenment  as a whole” (p3).  Peculiar  indeed  when  one considers  the  English  intellectual personnel of the  17th  and  18th centuries and the  high  reputation  English institutions and ideas had amongst    the  leading  lights  of  the   continental   Enlightenment, especially  in  the  country  which is  generally  represented  as  the powerhouse of Enlightenment thinking,  France.   Here is the philosophe of philosophes,  Voltaire,  at full Anglophile admire: “The English are the only people on earth who have been able to prescribe the limits  of Kings by resisting them;  and who,  by a series of struggles,  have  at last  established  that  wise  Government,  where  the  prince  is  all powerful  to  do  good,  and  at the  same  time   is  restrain’d  from committing evil;   where the Nobles are great without insolence,   tho’ there  are no vassals;  and where the People  share in  the  government  without confusion.”  Lettres philosophiques on Lettres Anglais (1775).

 A  strong argument can be made for the English Enlightenment  not  only existing  but  occurring  a century or so  before  that  of  any  other nation  and subsequently providing much of the  basis  for the  general Enlightenment movement.  

Consider these figures from  the seventeenth century:   William Gilbert (science,   especially  magnetism),   Francis  Bacon  (philosophy   and science),  Thomas Hobbes (philosophy), John Locke (philosophy),  Thomas Harrington     (nascent economics     and    sociology),   William  Harvey (biology/medicine),    Robert   Hooke   (polymathic    scientist    and technologist),  John Rae (biologist), Edmund Halley (astronomy),  Isaac Newton  (mathematics and physics).  What did they have in common  other than  intellectual distinction?   They were all driven by the  idea  of reason,  by the belief that the world could be  understood  rationally. That  is  the  real  essence  of  the  Enlightenment,   the  belief  in rationality,  in particular,  the belief that the world is  subject  to  physical laws, that God does not intervene capriciously, that the world is not governed by magic.  Such ideas did not preclude a God or prevent an intense relationship with the putatively divine, but they did encase God   within  a  rational system of thought in which  His   action  was limited, voluntarily or otherwise. Newton may have been utterly fixated with the numerology of the Bible but he believed the world was  ordered according to physical laws.    From  the belief that the universe is organised  rationally  comes  the corollary  that it can be understood,  that everything is  governed  by laws which can be discovered by men. This idea pre-dated Newton, but it was his ideas,  most notably his laws of motion and theory of  gravity, that elevated the idea to almost a secular religion.   During  the next century   intellectuals   took  the  example  of   Newton’s   inanimate mechanistic physical world and extrapolated the idea to every aspect of existence, from biology to philosophy  to social policy. If only enough was known,  if only enough effort was made,  then everything,  of  this world  at least,   could be understood and controlled  and   everything could be the subject of rational decision making.      

The 18th  century Enlightenment  had another aspect,  an  association with the  democratic or at least a wish that the power of kings  should be greatly curtailed – the Voltaire quote given above is a good example of the mentality.  This also  has its roots in England.  The ferment of the  English  Civil war  not only produced  proto-democratic  political movements  such as the Levellers, it also started  Parliament along the road  of being more than a subordinate constitutional player by forcing it to act as not only  a legislature but as an executive.  Stir  in  the experience  of  the Protectorate,  simmer for  30 years or so   of  the restored  Stuart kings,  mix in  the Glorious Revolution of 1689  which resulted  in  the Bill of Rights and established the English  crown  as being in the gift of Parliament  and  season with half a century of the German  Georges  and   you have the British (in  reality  the  English) constitution   which was so admired by Voltaire,  who  thought it quite perfect,  and  which  gave the American colonists the  inspiration  for their   own political arrangements (president = king,  Senate =  Lords, House  of Representatives = Commons,  with a  Constitution and Bill  of Rights  heavily influenced by the English Bill of Rights.)

The beginnings of English intellectual history

English intellectual history is a long one.  It can reasonably be  said to  begin  in  the early eighth  century   with  Bede’s  Ecclesiastical  History of the English,  which amongst other things firmly  establishes the  English  as  a people before England as  a  kingdom  existed  (“At present  there  are  in Britain…five languages  and  four  nations  – English, British, Irish and Picts…” Book One).  

In the late ninth century comes Alfred the Great,  a  king  whose reign was  one  of  constant struggle against the Danes,   but   who  thought  enough of learning to teach himself to read as an adult and then engage in  translations  into Old English of  devotional works  such  as  Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care,   Bede’s Ecclesiastical History  and Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy.  It is difficult to think of any other monarch anywhere who showed such a practical concern for learning.

From Alfred’s reign  comes the Anglo-Saxon Journal (ASJ),  a work  also written in Old English.  (There are nine  surviving versions written at different  places,  eight of which are in Old English with the odd  man out being in  Old English with a Latin translation).   The journal   is  a  history/myth  of  Britain and a narrative  of   the  settlement   of  Anglo-Saxons  within it  until the time of Alfred and then  a  putative  record of and commentary on the great events  of English life from  the time  of  Alfred until the middle of the 12th century  (like  all  suchmedieval works the veracity of the ASJ is questionable, but at worst it gives a flavour of the mentality of those living at the time). The work is  unique  in  medieval Europe for  its scope  and  longevity  and  is particularly  noteworthy  for  the  fact that it  was  written  in  the vernacular throughout the three centuries or so of its existence,  this at  a time when the normal language for  writing in Western Europe  was Latin. 

The    Norman   Conquest   subordinated   the   English    politically, linguistically  and socially  for the better part of three   centuries,but  it  did  not kill English  intellectual  endeavour.   Those  three centuries  of oppression saw the emergence of  many of the ideas  which were later to produce the modern world.  John of Salisbury   produced a work  on politics (Policraticus 1159)  which was “the first attempt  in the  Middle Ages at an extended and systematic treatment  of  political philosophy”  (G  H Sabine A History of Political Theory p246)  and  one which  argued  for  a form of limited monarchy  and  the  overthrow  of tyrants,  views  given  practical English  expression  in  Magna  Carta (1215). The period was also noteworthy for the strong showing of annals and histories,  most notably those of Eadmer (Historia Novorum  or  The History of Recent Events – it covered the  period 950-1109),  Henry  of Huntingdon (Historia Anglorum or  History of the English 5BC-1129)  an  Matthew  Paris (Chronica Majora).   In addition,   the Common  Law  was formed,   English  became  once  more  a  literary  language  (Chaucer, Langland),   John  Wycliffe  laid  the  intellectual  roots   of    the Reformation and,  perhaps  most impressively, ideas which were later to provide the basis for a true  science emerged.

Quantifying English intellectual accomplishment

In  his  book  “Human  Accomplishment”   the  American  Charles  Murray calculates  the  contribution  to  civilisation  made  by   individuals throughout  history  up until 1950.  To give his calculations  as  much objectivity  as possible he measures  the amount of attention given  to an  individual   by  specialists in their  field in   sources  such  as  biographical  dictionaries – put crudely, the greater the frequency  of mention and the larger the space devoted to an individual,  the  higher they score.

Murray  quantifies   achievements  under  the  headings  of   astronomy (Galileo  and  Kepler  tied  for  first  place),  biology  (Darwin  and Aristotle),  chemistry (Lavoisier),  earth sciences  (Lyell),   physics (Newton  and  Einstein),   mathematics  (Euler),   medicine   (Pasteur, Hippocrates  and  Koch),   technology  (Edison  and  Watt),    combined scientific (Newton), Chinese philosophy (Confucious), Indian philosophy (Sankara), Western  philosophy (Aristotle), Western music (Beethoven and Mozart),  Chinese painting  (Gu  Kaizhi  and  Zhao  Mengfu),  Japanese painting  (Sesshu,  Sotatsu and  Korin),   Western  art  (Michelangelo), Arabic  literature,  (al-Mutanabbi) Chinese literature (Du Fu),  Indian literature  (Kalidasa),   Japanese  literature  (Basho  and  Chikamatsu Monzaemon), Western literature (Shakespeare).  

Objections have been made to Murray’s methodology such as the fact that many  of the great achievements of the past,  especially in  the  arts, have  been anonymous,  which give it a bias towards the modern  period, and fears that it has a built-in Western bias –  the  representation of  non-Western  figures in the science  and technology  categories  is minimal.   Nothing can be done about anonymity – it is  worth  pointing out  that the majority of those heading the categories lived  at  least several  centuries  ago  – but  Murray  substantially   guards  against pro-Western  bias with the breadth and number of his sources and it  is simply  a fact that science and advanced technology arose only  in  the  past few centuries and that both are essentially Western  achievements. It  is  also noteworthy that Murray’s  method only places  one  of  his fellow   countrymen  at  number  one  in  any  category    (Edison   in technology).  If  any bias exists it is unlikely to  be  conscious.  At worst,  Murray’s  findings  can be seem as a fair  rating   of  Western achievement.

The list of those heading the various categories (see second  paragraph above)   suggests  that  Murray’s method is pretty  sound  despite  any possible methodological  shortcomings,  because those who come top  are all men of extreme achievement.  There might be arguments over  whether Aristotle should take precedence over Plato or Kant,   but no one could honestly argue that  Aristotle was an obviously unworthy winner of first place in the philosophy category.

Of the 13 categories which  can include Westerners (they are  obviously  excluded  from  non-European  literature  and  art),   Englishmen are indisputed firsts or share  first place with one other in four: biology Darwin with  Aristotle;   Physics  Newton  with  Einstein;   combined scientific  Newton alone;  Western literature Shakespeare  alone.   No other  nation  has  more  than two representatives  at  the  top  of  a category.  The thirteen Western  ncluding categories have a total of 18 people in  sole or joint first place.  England  has nearly a quarter of those  in first place and more than a quarter of the 15 who  are  drawn from the modern period, say 1500 AD onwards.   

Apart  from those coming first,   the English show strongly in most  of the  Western qualifying categories (especially in physics – 9 out of the top 20, technology – 8 out of the top twenty – and Western literature). The  major  exceptions  are   Western art  and   music,  where  English representation  is mediocre.   I think most people who think about  the matter  at  all  would feel those  quantified cultural  strengths  and  weaknesses represent the reality of English history and society.     

The fact that England shows so strongly in Murray’s exercise  gives the lie  to  the common representation of the  English  as  unintellectual. Moreover,  there is much more to human intellectual accomplishment than the fields covered by Murray,  most notably the writing of  history and the social sciences,  areas in which England has  been at the forefront throughout the modern period: think Gibbon,  Macaulay,  Herbert Spencer and Keynes.