‘The scholar’s shield against a cataract of nonsense’

Dear all

Those of you who were at Speech Day on Saturday may recall that I quoted from CS Lewis’ essay entitled ‘Learning in Wartime’, in which he extolled the virtues of maintaining an appetite for learning despite the outbreak of World War Two. In it, he reminded his audience that the war was simply an exaggerated state of the permanent human condition of uncertainty. Lewis said that ‘the only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable.’ In other words, no matter what else is going on in our lives, we must never give up our determination to keep on learning.

He also argued that education is our greatest defence against being misled. I ended my speech on Saturday with these words from CS Lewis’s essay:

‘Those who have lived in many places are not likely to be deceived by the local errors of their village, while the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press of their own age.’ I think we would all agree that in today’s era of social media and constant digital noise, that ability to think critically is more important than ever.

In our final assembly of the school year, I asked all our students to think about these two aspects of Lewis’s essay. First, how far have they actively sought knowledge to develop themselves this year? And second, as we look forward to the summer holiday, I asked everyone to consider how they might make the most of wherever they might be travelling over the next few weeks, and how they can use some of the time away from school to read as widely as they can.

Have a great summer, and we look forward to welcoming our students back in September for a new school year.

Best wishes

Michael Bond