Capablanca – chess should be taught in schools

Unusually, we have some ‘news’ from 88 years ago! In 1932, ABC (Madrid) published on 14 May an interview with Capablanca by Adelardo Fernández Arias. ChessBase recently published an English translation of the whole interview by Carlos Colodro. For us, the interesting question and answer was:

What is the practical purpose of chess in life?

I think it should be taught in schools, so that children get used to thinking and organizing their thoughts. It is a mental exercise of great consequence. Everyone should know how to play chess, to get used to thinking and controlling themselves.