Our English Syllabus

Our English Syllabus is a speech which Lewis read to the English Society at Oxford. It should be the first Lewis writings that are not much related to Christianity. In this speech, Lewis talks about learning and education. He thinks that learning and education is different. He thinks the purpose of education is to produce the good man and the good citizen; and he thinks that vocational training is for making a good banker, good electrician, good scavenger, etc.

As a non-native speaker, at first I don't quite understand the difference between education and learning. However, when I translate both words to Chinese, I get different results. The Chinese word for "education" means learning passively. Which it should be referring to what Lewis says, before University we all are educated. Actually, this phenomenon happens in Hong Kong very often. In Middle school and high school, we can only choose between science division or arts division. We cannot choose what subject to learn. So it is simply that we are just educated by schools. However, after we enter university, as Lewis says, we begin to "learn". We can choose our own subject to take, and our own major.
I agree to Lewis that learning is more important than education. It is because we are learning something that it is useful to the society. As Lewis talks about the importance of vocational training, learning these skills can help us a lot.
I also like one of Lewis's sentence:

When God made the beasts dumb He saved the world from infinite boredom, for if they could speak they would all of them, all day, talk nothing but shop.

I think that it is interesting that Lewis thinks animals in this view. However, I don't quite agree what Lewis says. Lewis thinks that working is like a slavery. However, I have seen people who love his job. Many people find jobs which they can extend their interest in their job. Perhaps it is because of the changing of the society, as nowadays there are more variety of jobs avaliable.