THE PETERITE Vol. LIII
FEBRUARY, 1961
No. 356
EDITORIAL The start of the Easter term brings with it the traditional General Knowledge Paper, a certain source of smug satisfaction to the very few, frustration to many and sheer disbelief to the majority. After being subjected to this annual ordeal, these latter may well ask 'What is General Knowledge?' The practice in most such papers of sub-division into a number of different subjects would seem to indicate that there is little knowledge that can justifiably be called `general'—that is, not related to any specific subject. Such household words, for instance, as 'Wells Fargo', 'Perry Como', 'Dock Green' and 'Ward 10' may understandably be regarded as gibberish by the one in four not yet under the spell of the 'goggle-box', just as the anti-blood sports fanatic may rightly claim that 'scrum', 'line-out', 'stand-off' and 'hooker' are expressions from a very specialist vocabulary. It would perhaps be fair to define General Knowledge as 'Knowledge of the world about us' in the very widest sense : it can thereby cover the encyclopaedic knowledge of those gentlemen, who entertain and astound us on the wireless with their uncannily accurate information about the social habits of the Amerindians or the intricate matrimonial relationships of the House of Tudor or the plot of the most obscure Victorian novel, and, at the other end of the scale, those of us who have a nodding acquaintance with the better known composers, authors and artists, a vague idea of geography and an even vaguer one of history—in other words, the 'I know that but I can't just think of it' class. We pass naturally from the definition of General Knowledge to its purpose. Much ill-deserved scorn is poured by the ignorant on those who make a practice of collecting—and remembering—odd disconnected snippets of information; and it is, of course, true that such knowledge on its own is of very superficial value, but the possessor of an impressive fund of general knowledge is usually one who takes a lively interest in all aspects of life, not only in his or her own narrow little sphere—one who reads books and papers avidly, regards it as important to know how he is governed and who runs the country in which he lives, feels he should know something about the other few thousand million people who inhabit the same planet, one who, in fact, considers that all knowledge is of value and that none should be despiseed. 1
