Education, Its Shape

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/39/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

While I wet my throat with the tea Dorothea had brewed, we waited a while for Lady Grace to write down what I had said so far.
…In that time, the Demon King grumbled a while at the tea Dorothea had brewed.

“Now then, that is rest enough.
Please continue.”

Lady Grace announced it again.
So I nodded as well.

“Yes. As you will.
As for the contents of education at each stage… from elementary through higher education, the headings themselves do not change greatly.”
“Is that so? …I see. For continuity, to build up, I take it.”
“As expected of your insight.”

Well, to be precise I did not study education as a specialty, so I do not know if that is truly so.
But as a person who received education, I think so.

“That said, it is only of the era I received.
The education given to commoners still earlier was so-called reading, writing, and calculation.”

There is no abacus in this world, so I adapted it a little.
I might introduce the abacus to this world.
…Huh? Come to think of it…??

“Asha? Is something the matter?”
“Ah, no, something unrelated to the talk suddenly came to mind.
I shall return to the talk.
At first, reading, writing, and calculation: that does not change in the world I was in either.
The importance of reading and writing letters is not something I need tell Lady Grace at this late hour, I think.”
“Yes. Her Majesty and I both know that well.
…But beginning it from six, I had not even thought of.”
“The need for letters increases the more one becomes an adult, so it is certainly an essential skill an adult ought to acquire.
Only, if one begins it from early childhood, it ought to be more efficient: that, I believe, was the design.
There was also research that memory is superior in childhood.”
“As a rule of thumb I can understand that… I see. You put that much effort into learning, enough to research even that and confirm it.”

Truly, I can only say, as expected, that comprehension. No wonder the Demon King fell for her.
That’s how it is… now I understand that the hand of research had reached even you research even that?
And that it would have contributed to the development of other fields as well.
If this phenomenon can be confirmed, doing it this way ought to be more efficient, and so on.
So I think one must not stint money and people when it comes to research.

“That is so.
Returning to the talk… what one learns is language, calculation… or rather, arithmetic based on that, including, for example, grasping the size of a place by calculation.
Then the geography and history of the country one lives in. Natural phenomena around one, and the basics of an academic approach to them.
A basic cultivation of music and art. How to do housework and the like around one. An understanding of techniques such as clockwork devices.
What is called physical education: training in moving the body, as well.”
“Asha. Um, I am sorry, please give me time to write it down.”

Of course, I nodded, and even in that time Lady Grace’s hand did not stop.
Letters were carved into parchment in a pleasant, flowing rhythm.
Incidentally the Demon King beside her was nodding, yes, yes. Probably all of it was being engraved in her head.
Truly a cheat memory…

While I was thinking that, Lady Grace finished writing and sighed, looking at what she had written.

“This is elementary education, is it not?
This is elementary education… even among nobles, those who can receive an education this far would be rare.”
“To speak honestly, there is no tutor who can teach this wide a range.
Noble academies, I have heard, are more practical study of politics and the like.”

I have of course never attended, but that is how it seems.
They are taught the management of domains, tactics in war, and so on.
Put another way, one could also say there is no surplus to deepen learning outside fields of that practical profit.

“Of course, the teachers who teach these are trained through specialized institutions.
The university I mentioned earlier.”
“Ah, that would be so, of course.”
“However, in elementary education almost a single teacher teaches these subjects to around thirty children.”

I am sorry, just when you were relieved.
I felt apologetic, and as expected Lady Grace froze.
The Demon King and Dorothea, too, had faces of something like recoil.

“E-even I can barely teach a dozen or so at once…”
“If I may give a private opinion, that Lady Grace can teach that many is rather a thing to marvel at.
Teaching around thirty as I said works because, on the basis of educational theory built up over units of a hundred years, set contents are taught in a set procedure, and students who accept it as set receive it.
In other words, a structure exists.
Lady Grace, by contrast, is teaching from the beginning by herself; it is not something that can be compared.”

To be precise, it is often not as set.
I know there are not a few teachers who each invent and adapt.
But that it holds because a set structure exists is, I think, not wrong.

“…I understand that you are not flattering or currying favor.
No wonder Her Majesty is pleased.”
“Er… how to put it. I am overwhelmed.”

Lady Grace smiled at me, small and bright, and it was so dazzling I found myself looking down.
A charisma smile like this without warning is against the rules!

“…Your Majesty, please do not be jealous of Asha.”
“I-I know. I am not jealous.”

At Dorothea’s pointing-out, Her Majesty hurriedly looked away.
No, I felt the Demon King’s gaze hurt for an instant, but I will take it as my imagination, all right?
At any rate, let us continue the talk.

“In elementary education, the emphasis seems to be placed on knowing the society, the world one lives in.
There is this phenomenon. There is this place. There was this history.
There is this music, it is fun to sing. There is the concept of pictures and sculpture. Making them is fun. Something like that.”

Well… it did not go as ideally as that, and especially in music and art I cannot deny there were many pushy teachers with a strong ego.
But I think the original aim was in that sort of place.

“I see. First you turn their eyes outward, and lead them to take an interest in various things.”
“That is so. Language and arithmetic had a slightly different aspect as well…
Language goes beyond reading and writing letters into the meaning of words, and further the meaning of turns of phrase, and one acquires a shared understanding: what this sort of sentence wants to say is this.”
“Indeed. To convey what one wants to say with words, a shared recognition is needed: if one expresses it this way, it means this.”

I nodded back at Lady Grace’s words.
That’s how it is. State the author’s thought in the national language, I think, is not truly guess their feelings, but understand and express the shared recognition that this turn of phrase means this.

The meaning of characters, and from there the meaning of compounds. Understanding that it means this is the foundation.
What one ought to go on to from there is, I think, the understanding that this sort of sentence means this.
And further, having understood that, becoming able to make sentences that will have one’s own thoughts understood: that, perhaps, is the ideal.

“Then arithmetic, I think, was designed to take as its starting point that the rules of calculation generally used are such-and-such, and through that to make the foundation of a thinking that thinks logically.”
“For my part, I am curious about that thinking that thinks logically through arithmetic.”

The Demon King, who had been listening beside us, cut in.
That that question came out—was the Demon King more the science type?
But this question I welcomed greatly; Lady Grace was nodding as well.

“Yes. To put a simple place, it is exactly what Your Majesty pointed out: more than a thousand a year.
In fifty-four years, more than fifty-seven thousand humans were sent.
Taking that phenomenon, and, having understood what information one needs, shaping it into the form one needs.
In practice, one repeats training in understanding what form of answer a question is asking for, and then thinking how to obtain it.”

At least, I think that thinking of mine the Demon King noticed was that sort of thing.
If one likes, one could even bring it down to per day. …Three a day. That is truly awful…
Anyway.
Perhaps convinced by my reply, the Demon King nodded, yes, yes… and Lady Grace was pressing her brow.

“You pile those up in elementary education, from six to twelve?”
“Yes, that is so.
In secondary education one learns the reading of still more difficult sentences, and comes to learn classical literature as well.
Then learning one other country’s language begins as well.”
“I see. It was a country where circulation and exchange with other countries were thriving?”
“As expected of your insight.”

It was an island nation, though—I would not say that now.
The talk would stray, probably. Or there would be confusion. Or the Demon King would bite.

“Then arithmetic becomes a learning called mathematics, and one comes to think about still more abstract matters.
In the other fields one digs still deeper, and steps into the theoretical parts that compose them as well.
The world one knew in elementary education, one understands with theory underfoot. That, I think, is secondary education.
And so each field was taught by teachers who had learned it as a specialty.”

Taking advantage of the two of them listening quietly, I talked on.
When I had said that far, the Demon King opened her mouth.

“Abstract matters—what do you mean by that?”
“Yes… for example, you had two apples and bought one more and it became three.
That is easy to understand because there is a concrete image… but if you are suddenly told, what is one thousand twenty-four divided by sixteen, you have no image and must handle only numbers, so would you not falter if you tried to calculate?”
“Indeed, I think what, all of a sudden, but because I cannot see a concrete image, there is a place that is somehow hard to calculate.”
“Incidentally, the answer is sixty-four.”
“What!? Mental arithmetic again!”

The Demon King—no, Lady Grace and Dorothea as well—were immediately surprised.
Fufufu~. How’s that.
It is not that much of a thing, though, once you know the trick.

The number 1024 is a power of two. Anyone who has dabbled a little in computers will recognize it.
And this can be broken into 4 × 256. And 256 is 16 × 16.
In other words, 4 × 16 × 16 = 1024.
4 × 16 is 64.
If you arrange the conditions, even a calculation that looks complicated can be done easily.
One of the ultimate forms of that is the fast Fourier transform, perhaps.
No, I have already forgotten what it is like; I only dabbled a little at university.

“And this is not mere number-play.
By bringing it into abstract talk like this, one becomes able to think in various ways, even of numbers that cannot exist in reality.
And when one has gone to an extremely advanced place, one can suddenly drop it into a theory that can be used in reality.”

The encryption that protects mobile phone communications, and the encryption of the internet, I have heard, were made by piling such things up.
Besides that, in the design of buildings, integration, one field of mathematics, is important, and so on.
I have not learned as far as stepping into it in detail.

One goes on from linear functions, quadratic functions, and beyond that learns the concept of imaginary numbers, which become −1 when squared.
The theories that lie beyond combining those sometimes even have a beauty, a friend who majored in mathematics once said.
I can understand, a little.

“I see. You train so that one can reach such theories.”
“Yes. To be precise, humans who can go that far are limited, as one would expect, so there is a sorting in higher school…
But even without going that far, humans who have learned mathematics properly often seem good at having someone listen to them.”

This is only a personal impression, though.
Even among the humanities there are people who can do mathematics above a certain level, and those people seemed good at presentations.

“What one learns in higher school is an extension of secondary education, or a deepening.
The fields become a little finer, and one learns each more deeply.
University grows strong in specialization, but this time one becomes able to choose and learn the field one wants to learn.
One could also call it an environment where, with the cultivation built up to there, one can learn what one wishes to know.
The above is an outline of what can be learned.”

If it functions ideally, that is. And there should be not a few people who actually do so.
Well, that is not something to say in this place now.

After I finished talking, Lady Grace was silent.
She wrote together what had been said so far, flowing.

“I see. I understand well.
Asha, thank you for a valuable talk.”
“No. If I could be of use to you, Lady Grace, that is the best.”
“Yes. It was most meaningful.
Understanding that it is something I cannot possibly imitate—even that alone.”

So saying, Lady Grace laughed.
Even as she uttered words like resignation.

“That is so. For now.
That the direction we ought to aim for has come into view may also be called a happy chance.”

…Ah, they really are a devoted wife-and-wife, these two.
What Lady Grace had wanted to say, the Demon King understood firmly as well.
The two who would know that better than anyone looked at each other and smiled.

…They suit each other very well, I thought.