Joining The Rat Race (1966)

The new computers arrived, just fitted out and shining brightly. After they were settled in the computer house, the "feed-in" began. For four years information was pumped into them with occasional periodic tests to ensure that they were working properly and that the "feed-in" was taking effect. In the fifth year programming began in earnest with the acquired material being organised and the most valuable information fed in hurriedly to meet the dead-line.

Then came the week of final testing. Which computer had stored the information most efficiently and which could feed-back the required information fast enough? Failures were rejected, even if imperfections had arisen only during the testing week. Machines are not allowed to be imperfect.

We are imperfect. But then we are not machines; not quite, that is. We are almost as many little computers - receiving information, storing it, or trying to store it, or not bothering, as the case may be - the products of an educational system which has acquired the worst characteristic of our time and has become a rat race. The goal is exams, exams, and more exams. When that little slip of paper drops on to your door-mat one morning it contains the result of five years of your life, summed up in a few letters printed by a computer! "Passed" means that you struggle on. "Failed" means you have not even started.

The system is based on the examination in which the standard fluctuates and the emotions and reactions of a candidate may well influence the result. This is, to say the least, ridiculous. But to keep one's head above water one must bow to the demand of the employer or else sink beneath the scrambling mass.

D. CUTTING, LVI Arts