Education has not been the same since the decline and fall of the Ink Monitors. At one time in an Elementary School (5-14 then leave school) each class might have one. Mostly “he’s”, they would be a trusted pupil and if they proved reliable, polite and diligent they might earn a reference to be a shop assistant or even a clerk.
They learned to check the ink pot at each desk, judge the quantity
necessary and pour in the right amount of ink from a jar. To do this they would
have to be entrusted with access to the classroom cupboard and would both
obtain and return the jar properly and without supervision.
This was integral to a whole culture of steel pen nibs and scarce paper
when writing was a form of calligraphy and care needed in the shaping of each
letter, the accuracy of each word and the whole structure of a sentence and
paragraph. It is a world long since lost.
But think of what might have happened in our modern age had ink still been
in use. It is certain that persons of 15-17 or any younger age could never be
allowed to undertake such onerous duties.
Nor could teachers or cleaning staff, it would be outside their
conditions of service. There would have to be Writing Materials Replenishment
Assistants with negotiated salaries and comparable conditions of service.
This would take management and to avoid the post code lottery of
differences a staff at local authority level to co-ordinate, manage and supply
the needed staff and materials. Clearly high level consultancy would need to be
brought in to satisfy the auditors and others that it was all to be done as it
should be.
But could local authorities actually be entirely trusted with matters of
this kind? It would cry out for central direction and thinking. Possibly, it
would begin as part of one government department or another.
Then in recent years an Ink Procurement and Inspection Agency would have
been established with fully staffed at salary levels to compete with senior
management in the financial sector to ensure that all the angles were covered,
the targets set and statistics and supervision ensured.
There would be research budgets. A new department would be funded at the
University of East Dunwich
The standardisation of ink procurement would mean major contracts with
all that this entailed. No doubt agreements would be reached in some foreign
place for out sourcing all the production for transport by container ships. This
would help the UK
By some miracle of accounting and with all the consultancy, financing
and layers of management and control the filling of ink pots would become critical
to keeping up the GDP and stimulation of the velocity of circulation of public
sector funding.
The big question is given the need to increase the consumption of ink
during a time of economic difficulty whether the use of ink pellets (wodges of
paper dripping with ink used as a missile fired by the skilled use of rubber
bands) by alienated victims of oppression in the classroom should be subject to
reduced or no regulation.
Perhaps the Lords and Commons should be equipped with rubber bands and
pellets to chase each other round instead of just standing there yapping.
Even better in The Commons they could all chase Bercow, the tiresome
Speaker.
There would also have to be a standard procedure to deal with inkwells which had been stuffed with bread moistened with a little milk just before the school holidays.
ReplyDeleteAfter the holidays the resulting crop of mould would probably have to be dealt with as a bio-hazard.
Quills would have to be 're-introduced because those steel nibs were bloody sharp.
ReplyDeleteBut how would the quills be sharpened?
Back to slates and slate pencils.
Doonhamer.