Sources:
Artwork "Art School" by George Deem, as featured on the cover of Weapons of Mass Instruction.
Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander Inglis. (1918) under the section, “Six Important Functions of Secondary Education” pages 367, 375-384.
Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto (2010), Prologue.
Summarized, it’s like this: 1. Habits of reaction to authority. 2. Conform. 3. Diagnose your social role. 4. Once students are divided, they’re to ONLY learn THEIR level, and not above. 5. Assessing breed quality 6. Selecting a few to continue the rule over the others.
The details below are from Inglis’ own words as summarized by John Taylor Gatto.
The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habit of reaction to authority. This, of course precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can’t test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
The integrating function. This might well be called “the conformity function,” because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in “your permanent record.” Yes, you do have one.
The differentiating function. Once their social role has been “diagnosed”, children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits- and not one step further. So much for making their personal best.
The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin’s theory of natural selection as applied to what he called “the favored races.” In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit- with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments- clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That’s what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
The propaedeutic function. The societial system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To what end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
Weapons Of Mass Instruction audio book link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w0k4tol02ljs996/AABXTCakMbiKchRUzVZypcdFa?dl=0
Principles of Education PDF Download:
https://ia801408.us.archive.org/26/items/principlesofseco00ingliala/principlesofseco00ingliala.pdf