George Bernard Shaw: maxims for Revolutionists

Mr Callow, grammar school teacher. From ‘Modern Types’ by Geoffrey Gorer & Ronald Searle

I have not heard it said in decades, but in the 1960s and 1970s the following ‘maxim’ was quite frequently voiced:

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"

It is worth looking closely at this statement. For that it what it is: it is not an argument. It is meant to be a very clever summation of an apparent universal truth, and as such it jars and insults if you happen to be a teacher, and probably makes some of the ‘doers’ feel smug. Well, we can make a start by reversing the statement: Those that can, teach. Those that cannot [teach] do. This is better balanced, but it is still only a statement, and statements of this kind cannot be universally applied. Certainly, I have known graduates who have gone into teaching because they have not known what else to do, and not because teaching has for them been a vocation, (and I know of two who tried, but where unsuccessful as they did not have GCSE maths — which they were disinclined to pursue!). Admittedly, it is a problem for graduates to find work if the subject they have studied does not — immediately — seem relevant to the non–academic workplace. For example, if you have studied Classics, how could this possibly be of any use to you if you in applying for a management placement at Marks and Spencer? Well, you might actually be an ideal candidate — thoroughly versed in the ways and whiles of mankind! Whereas, someone who has a degree in Management Studies but has never read a book not ‘relevant’ to their course may be hopeless as a manager. Few things can be effectively taught if the aptitude is lacking.

One of the best ‘textbooks for the world of work’ is Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning. An excellent complement to Porter’s Competitive Advantage in all likelihood. Consider these passages from the Advancement:

A soft answer diminishes wrath. Here is noted that silence or a rough answer exasperates; but an answer present and temperate pacifies.

The way of sluggards is as a hedge of thorns. Here is lively represented how laborious sloth proves in the end; for when things are deferred until the last instant, and nothing prepared beforehand, every step finds a briar or an impediment, which catches or stops. 

I put this text forward for the reading list of the Judge Institute of Management, but they won’t take on will they?! Yet Bacon’s expression is a model of clarity, and what he says can be put into immediate practice. This is stuff of substance.

To return to G B Shaw’s supposed witticism, we can puncture it with a single example: the nuclear physicist as a doer — a high level worker in a nuclear power station. Apart from hard work, application, and aptitude, how does such a person learn what they need to know to do the work? Obviously, there is only one answer to this: from infancy to graduation they have been taught. And, unless they are of exceptional ability, the better they have been taught the more able they will be. There is a proverb that says, ‘We always thank those who carry us over the bridge.’ So we do, and — for those who have been lucky — it is a fair bet that certain teachers will be high on the list. To be well–taught is a pleasure and enrichment that can hardly be over–estimated, and this is sufficient proof that Shaw’s ‘maxim’ is only true in those cases where it is true. A good illustration of the later is well–expressed in John Berger’s Permanent Red, 1960. The passage quoted is from the chapter The Difficulty of Being an Artist, sub–heading The Plight of the Art Student:

There is the tragic farce of students being automatically encouraged to equip themselves to teach simply because teaching is the most obvious way of their earning their living and retaining maximum spare time for their ‘work’ — seldom because they have a vocation for it. Thus a few fortunate students have the prospect of going to Art Schools to teach painters to teach painters to teach!

How far this obtains today, I have no idea, but it must have been from such observations that Shaw ‘hewed’ his "Maxims for Revolutionists".