The Wilderness

Smith's Parish

February 22, 1959

The Editor

The Royal Gazette

Dear Sir,

The saying of the week is: "Education fills the labourer full of tricks."

I claim I have been misquoted. I claim I said: "A man sometimes is full of tricks."

Colonel Astwood claimed that the Portuguese were uneducated, and might not be assimilated. I said:

"So what? Sometimes education fills a man full of tricks, he becomes a land speculator, a parasite, and a non-producer. These Portuguese, if uneducated, are at least producers. Which is best for the country?

It has been said of Africa when a man becomes educated the heaviest thing he will pick up is a pencil, and the dirtiest is a pen. Is education the criterion of all, when the thinkers of the world today are at variance on what is true education."

How often you hear in Bermuda the cry of frustration from the coloured people.In India it has been said if an Indian who received an Oxford education did not get a good job with the Government he usually committed suicide from frustration.

The top of the ladder is very small. We all cannot get there. Education is not to earn a living by, but for a better enjoyment of life. Who knows if the Portuguese philosophy of life is not equal to ours. Island speculation, inflation profiteers, the things that standards are set by or doing our daily job to make society click, who is to judge the value of each?

Sincerely yours,

EARLE OUTERBRIDGE