". . . to someone who has passed all the practical and academic exams involved in achieving 4 technical certificates (from Advanced Cert. in Manufacturing Technology/HNC to THAT fork lift licence) and a BA in Humanities with distinctions?"

David, you seem to set great store by your four technical certificates and your Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. I congratulate you on these achievements. But—how does this degree and these technical certificates (one in driving a fork lift) qualify you to speak authoritatively on politics, economics, and ethnomusicology,? I don't see that they make you any more qualified in these areas than someone picked at random off the street.

But hear this:   the acquisition of certificates and degrees is only the beginning of one's education. A technical certificate shows you are qualified on one specialized area, but it does not give you any actual experience in that area. Only time using that skill does that. One does attain a bit of knowledge in studying for certificates and degrees, but the important thing one should learn in the process is learning how to learn. I am constantly amazed and appalled by the number of people who assume that now that they have a degree, their education is complete. Far from it. It's only beginning. Now, the real learning can begin!

I have a number of technical certificates that declare me qualified for specific occupations. I spent a good five years at the University of Washington, in English Literature and Music, and studying with Dr. David C. Fowler, a medieval scholar who was also a ballad scholar. I also took courses in Humanities and the Sciences. After this, I spent an additional two years at the Cornish School of the Arts, a conservatory, studying music performance and learning about the practical aspects of a career in music.

I did not take a degree at either school. I learned what they had to offer and I also learned how to continue learning on my own. I was interested in the knowledge I was acquiring, including how to continue acquiring the knowledge I sought. I was not particularly interested in a piece of parchment with calligraphy on it. About all this would be good for would be to hang on a wall in an office in hopes that it would impress people. But I had no intention of working in an office.

During the time I worked as an technical illustrator for the Boeing Airplane Company, I sat next to a young woman who had also been to the University of Washington. She was a bit haughty toward me and considered herself superior to me in terms of education. Why? She had a Bachelor of Arts degree and I did not. Hence, to her, this meant that she was educated and I was not. This, despite the fact that I had spent nearly twice as much time in higher education institutions than she had, and while there I had chosen my courses carefully (with the wise guidance of counsellors such as Dr. Fowler), whereas she had followed the standard curriculum for Arts History majors.

I was aware that her field of study was Art History, not greatly respected by many other university students because it was an easy course of study and generally the field that many young women fresh out of high school chose to major in when they really had no reason or interest in attending college, other than attempting to put themselves in the way of promising young college men whom they hope will confer upon them the "Mrs." degree they were really seeking.

One noontime, when we sat at our drawing tables eating lunch, I had my nose in a book—a fairly characteristic pose—while munching away at my sandwich and sipping my coffee. She noted that when I wasn't working, I spent much of my time reading. She remarked—bragged, in fact—that she hadn't "cracked a book" since she graduated from the university. She had no interest in reading. On any subject.

No. She may have had a piece of parchment rolled up and tied with a ribbon stuffed away in a drawer someplace, but was she educated? I don't think so.

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Stu is right. There are plenty of knowledgeable people here on Mudcat, and since you are a newcomer to folk music, they—we—would be more than willing to assist you, answering any questions you have, and making suggestions as to how to proceed. But if you put people off by bragging about how much you already know (like the postulant, the lama, and the cup of tea), waving your certificates and degrees, constantly linking to your own web site in an effort to lend authority to some of your ideas, and keep telling us how it all should be, then about all you can really expect in return is hostility and put-downs.

Whether you like it or not, David, in folk music, you are a beginner. You should concentrate on learning, not trying to tell those with years, decades, of experience and knowledge what they should or should not be singing and how they should or should not be singing it.

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As far as your ideas about a pure, unadulterated English culture are concerned, considering the fact that you left England for Australia at the age of three and returned to England at the age of thirty, is it not conceivable that the picture of "England as it used to be and should be again" that you have in your mind is actually just that—in your mind—and never did reflect the real England?

You might want to give that possibility some serious consideration.

Don Firth

The doorstep to the Temple of Wisdom is the knowledge of our own ignorance.
                                                                                        —Benjamin Franklin