All manner of economic, social, cultural (not least, academic) and political good would be done if, between the secondary and the tertiary stages, there were universal non-military, but nevertheless uniformed, ranked and barracked National Service, doing good works while travelling around the country and beyond, and while meeting significantly broadening the range of one’s friends and acquaintances. For rather longer than one summer, of course.
As much as anything else, for those who went on to universities, it would drain the swamps of Marxism (including neoconservatism) and anarchism (including anarcho-capitalism), which the students would arrive far too worldly-wise to consider for one moment. Too bad for many of the lecturers, but then that generation is on the way out anyway.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
National Service in France prevented the student uprising in 1968?
ReplyDeleteReally?
This isn't 1968, and this isn't Paris, and the threat isn't from a "student uprising" (if you insist on calling it anything so pretentious, considering what it really was).
ReplyDeleteAs I said, that generation is on the way out anyway.
National Service tought young people an important skill: how to skive.
ReplyDeleteWhat better preparation for university?
ReplyDelete