show how the current governmental system, such as it was, had been
developed. But there was so much trivia – no wonder his teachers
couldn’t get through the lessons. Small wonder the students got bored.
So little of what they were presently required to learn had any
relevance to the life they lived and the planet they inhabited.
History should really begin with Landing on Pern well, some nodding
acquaintance with the emergence of homo sapiens, but why deal with the
aliens which Earth’s exploratory branch had discovered when there was
little chance of them arriving in the Rukbat system?
And further, Clisser decided, taken up with the notion, we should
encourage specialized training – raising agriculture and veterinary care
to the prestige of computer sciences. Breeding to Pernese conditions
and coping with Pernese parasites was far more important than knowing
what had once bothered animals back on Earth. Teach the miners and
metal workers where the spatial maps showed deposits of ores and what
they were good for; teach not the history of art – especially since many
of the slides of Masterpieces had now deteriorated to muddy blurs – but
how to use Pernese pigments, materials, design and tailoring; teach the
Great Currents, oceanography, fish-conservation, seamanship, naval
engineering and meteorology to those who fished the waters . . . As
to that, why not separate the various disciplines so that each student
would learn what he needed to know, not a lot of basically useless
facts, figures and theories?
For instance, get Kalvi to take in. .. what was the old term ah,
apprentices… take in apprentices to learn fabrication and metal-work?
And there’d have to be a discipline for mining, as well as
metal-working. One for weaving; farming; fishing. And one for
teaching, too. Of course, education in itself was designed to teach you
how to solve the problems that cropped up in daily living, but for
speciali ties you could really slim down to the essential skills required
by each. As it was, that sort of apprentice system was almost in place
anyhow with parents either instructing their kids in the family’s
profession or getting a knowledgeable neighbour to do it.
Kalvi had both sons now in supervisory capacities in his Telgar Works.
And there should be provisions to save other kids, like Jemmy, and see
that they were able to develop a potential not in keeping with their
native hold’s main business.
Adminster a basic aptitude test to every child at six, and the more
specific one at eleven or twelve, and be able to identify special
abilities and place him or her where she could learn best from the
people qualified to maximize the innate potential.
Even in medicine, a new curriculum should be established, based on what
was now available on Pern rather than what the First Settlers had had.
Mind you, Corey was constantly regretting the lack of this or that
medicine, or equipment and procedures that would have saved lives but
were no longer available. Clisser snorted; too much time was spent
bitching about what had been’ and if only we still had’ instead of
making the best of what was available in the here and now.
What was that old saying?
Ours not to wonder what were fair in life But finding what may he, make
it fair up to our means?” Well, he couldn’t remember who had said it or
to what it had applied. But the meaning definitely applied!
Pern had great riches which were being ignored in the regret of the
what had been’. Even Corey had to admit that the indigenous
pharmacopoeia was proving to be sufficient for most common ailments, and
even better in some cases now that the last of the carefully hoarded
Earth chemicals were depleted.
Basic concepts of maths, history, responsibility, duty, could indeed be
translated into music, easier to transmit and memorize. Why, anyone who
could strum an instrument could give initial instruction in holds, teach
kids to read, write and do some figuring, and then let ffiem apply
themselves to the nitty-gritty of their life’s occupation.
And music had always been important here.
He put his foot down on the step, pleased with this moment’s revelation.