[acenes]

But the reason why so many historical figures were tutored or homeschooled is because there was no adequate public education system. This is confusing correlation for causation. Indeed, Bertrand Russell wrote:

> The method of a hereditary leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had been taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. It might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers.

[fouc]

I have a strong suspicion that aristocrat homeschooling would still beat out public education system in many ways..

For example, public education system doesn't particularly touch on social skills, etiquette, rulership/leadership, Machiavellianism, business, investing, property management, etc.

[ryanthedev]

Public education is too broad of a definition. People treat public schools as all being equal.

There is a vast difference in level of education depending on where you live.

Things like etiquette, business and investing are taught in schools, all depends on which public schools you go to.

[Barrin92]

no because that's the skills of a political and economic oligarchy. If you want to see successful education systems look at the Soviet Union, India, China and also France.

A boatload of testing, rigorous learning combined with high formal standards, that's to say an actual meritocracy is how you can quite literally churn out geniuses. Chess is a good example.

[nvarsj]

Took me a while to realize you are actually being serious. Those systems are terrible examples - just look at the state of those countries themselves. That kind of highly standardized, high pressure exam school culture drives all the creativity and joy out of learning. The ones who survive are the calculators who can't think for themselves. Great for communist dictatorships, yes.

[Barrin92]

>just look at the state of those countries themselves

three out of four of them are doing alright, and the one that didn't failed because it endorsed an economic system that engaged exactly in the kind of cronyism and bizarre political machinations that the OP actually wants on a school curriculum.

>The ones who survive are the calculators who can't think for themselves

Well neither can your average Ivy league humanity's graduate at this point so at least they've got that in common. Thinking for yourself is overrated. if you manage to produce engineers at a rate ten times higher than everyone else and manage to not destroy your economy with central planning you'll surprised how far that can take you.

[webmaven]

> A boatload of testing, rigorous learning combined with high formal standards, that's to say an actual meritocracy is how you can quite literally churn out geniuses. Chess is a good example.

Isn't the way chess was taught essentially a system of tutoring? As soon as a 'prodigy' is identified, they started playing against Grand Masters outside of tournaments.

[hoseja]

Why shouldn't the masses have the mental weaponry of the ruling class? Social stability?

[atemerev]

Soviet chess school was all about individual highly intensive mentoring. There was no mass chess education.

[Barrin92]

Of course there was. There was a nationwide infrastructure of chess clubs, tournaments, state financing and training that no other country had. This created the large base from which gifted players could be recruited

"But the real basis of the Soviet school was its colossal infrastructure, creating a pool of millions. As the huge Soviet training campaign bore fruit, and literally hundreds of players achieved master or grandmaster strength between the 1940s and 1960s, a vast system of rewards and punishments was built up, with endless in-fighting and denunciations. The life of a chess professional was a privileged one: stipends were much higher than average wages, and foreign travel allowed. Botvinnik and his successor Vassily Smyslov were awarded the Order of Lenin, the highest civilian Soviet honour—no British professional has received so much as a knighthood."

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/coldwarchess

[atemerev]

It is the same in any other country. There are state-sponsored chess clubs everywhere.

[rurban]

no, there are not. only in the ex-soviet states.

that's why they dominate chess forever. the talentpool is huge, and education is good. nobody else comes close, in infrastructure and level.

[morberg]

And yet Magnus Carlsen is from Norway.

[Barrin92]

Sure, but we don't make judgements on individual data points. The Soviet Union with the short Fischer interlude dominated chess entirely. Today Russia still averages the strongest top 10 players, India and China have risen to become the third and fourth strongest chess nations within a generation or two, and looking at immigrant engineering talent in the US paints a pretty clear picture as well.

And the educational divide globally and development of science excellence pretty much only grows. How is this even a discussion given the evidence, any countries around that run on 'aristocratic homeschooling'? Saudi royal family kids in Swiss private schools?

[ascar]

> Sure, but we don't make judgements on individual data points.

And yet here you are making a judgement on the effectiveness of a method of education purely based on the single datapoint chess.

But leaving the hypocrisy aside, I don't think chess is a good example to begin with. The reason why Russia dominated chess is because chess was there a lot more popular compared to other countries. That this theroy likely makes sense is supported by the rise of China and India with their massive population compared to other countries. Having a high amount of interest and good education are components that often reinforce eachother. More opportunities to learn and compete with strong players improves ones own skill level.

Why was there a higher interest in chess in Russia? I can only guess, but I would say the long and cold winters that make outside activites impossible most of the year play an important role.

On top of that the world chess rankings are actually quite diverse since the rise of internet chess. Russia only has a single spot in the top 10 strongest players. [1] The rise of video gaming that competes with chess for indoor mental activity has probably something to do with that.

[1] https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

[qiskit]

> But the reason why so many historical figures were tutored or homeschooled is because there was no adequate public education system.

By definition no public school can be as good as anything Russell got. Russell had the privilege of his brother teaching him geometry and hence set him on his path to mathematical greatness. He came from a distinguished family. No public education can replicate the personal 1 to 1 knowledge transfer/education.

> None of the members of the class had been taught to be industrious

Yes. It's why people like Russell, Darwin, Turing, etc had the time to work on non-industrious subjects. If darwin, russell or turing were industrious, nobody would be talking about them today.

Public education system was created firstly to produce obedient soldiers for the state and secondly to provide drones for factories.

[sjg007]

Darwin and Turing went to school.

[pharke]

Isn't the important thing whether or not tutoring produces a higher percentage of Darwins compared to our current model of schooling? If it does, then shouldn't we expend some effort on identifying students that are more likely to become a Darwin and then provide them with high quality, publicly funded tutoring? We all benefit from the discoveries of geniuses like Darwin so it is in our common interest to make sure that we produce figures of that stature as often as possible.

[amon22]

What are you talking about? There is no shortage of geniuses who advance sciences today. If anything, the scientist class is wider than ever. Also, you're proposing segregation based on vague attributes which would be horrible for children and harm society.