Two Plus
Send children at the age of two
To school. I would. Well, wouldn’t you?
They’re old enough to walk. The nation
Needs them all to solve equations,
To parse a sentence, that they teach
Their parents all the parts of speech,
Read Sophocles and put his play on –
A pox on plasticine and crayon!
Let education start at speed
For one-year-olds. It’s what they need:
While toddling, let them face detention
If they decline the third declension.
Their daily study must be built on
Shakespeare, Austen, Chaucer, Milton:
No baking cakes or donning pinny –
But plenty of the elder Pliny.
For suckling babes, before they crawl:
A session in the old school hall,
A lecture on their thought’s design
In Plato, Ayer, Wittgenstein,
The gurgle and the coochi-coo
To be replaced by parlez-vous,
The histories of queens and kings
And not the flight of baby-swings.
Lastly, inculcate our spawn:
Teach algebra to our unborn.
Click here for a Telegraph article
Click here to buy a copy of Bill’s poetry collection Ringers
Click here for Bill’s New Statesman research project
