I had a very pleasant weekend, being visited by friends from Ireland. It was, of course, accompanied by much jollity on all sides and a modicum of alcoholic refreshment by all parties except myself.
Part of the programme included a visit to the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum.
I was delighted to find my old friend Sir Roger the elephant still there - truth to tell he couldn't be taken out so they surrounded him with an enormous packing case and left him in situ. Only in Glasgow, however, would they have left a hole in the side of the packing case, so they could look in from time to time to make sure he was still there.
The whole building is sparkling , light and airy. The vast arrays of stuffed animals have been put away, but the remaining exhibits have been themed ( Biggest clam shell/ tallest animal/ largest /smallest egg. etc etc) which is pointed and interesting.
The paintings are superbly displayed, and the Salvador Dali has been repositioned so one comes across it either round a corner, which blows you away, or along a corridor, which makes it grow on you.
The most interesting display, however, was of the great Glasgow exhibitions of 1888 and 1901. They were of such a scale that whole trains were exhibited, and the visitors were in the millions - the last day alone in 1901 had 173,000 visitors.
What was the cost to the people of Glasgow or the Government?
No, it wasn't like the Dome, Wembley, the NHS IT debacle, or, indeed, anything else this Government meddles in.
They were ready in advance. They were constructed under budget.They were organised and run by private committees. And they made a profit. In fact, the 1888 exhibition made so much money that they were able to build the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum from the proceeds.
Now two things occurred to me - apart from the obvious. The first was that the people in Local Government at the time we are talking about were NOT politicians as we know them today. They were businessmen who wanted to give something back to their communities. And by God they did - as the Tempest tells us, true freedom consist in service.
And the second was, both exhibitions had an enormous educative effect. Whilst the Dome had interactive games and drivel, the Glasgow exhibitions showed enterprise, proper science and business, and people yearned to get on and learn more about their world and what the future might be.
Jump forward to 1988, and the Glasgow Garden Festival had a success as well, largely because it did not try to pander to the lowest common denominator, but to maintain an assumption of a certain level of intelligence.
I know I have been stressing the Education Education Education a bit of late, but this is the same theme. We are dropping our belief in levelling up, because it's easier to level down to meet the targets. There shouldn't BE targets, there should be standards - and if you don't get the standard, go back and learn it againEducation is there to bring enlightenment to the less advantaged. It is NOT there just to keep the kids occupied whilst Mum and Dad are at work - that's if they aren't playing truant. You may remember there was a truancy czar some time ago. Yes, well, haven't heard much of him recently.
So in 1888, even the poorest and most disadvantaged came to see what was what, and they turned up at school, and suffered the tawse ( better than mum or dad being sent a letter by the domine) and LEARNED.
And in case you think you didn't need to know much in the shipyards, coal mines and engineering works that made Glasgow great, you would be very wrong.
Because the cildren and people of 1888 KNEW that if they learned they could "Get on".
Can we say the same today?
No comments:
Post a Comment