The tragedy of the race was when men, who had lived next to
things, began to fancy that if all that men knew could be
gathered into contrivances called books, and the children shut
in a building with these books, they could learn all about the
world on which gravity chains us, without the trouble of ever
looking at the things themselves.
When I was a little boy I was once studying in geography the
animals of the Rocky Mountains. Just then a boy rushed in
breathless, and said that there were “four men outside with
three big bears.” The teacher shut the door and cracked me
on the head for looking out over the high window-sill. And
yet these men had brought to our door the very real things
concerning which we were studying. But school was about book
bears, not real bears.
Once in the University of Cincinnati I saw a young woman
assiduously studying an oyster. Perplexed, she looked up and
asked the professor a question about the thing which she was
studying. The professor walked to her table, looked carefully
at the oyster, and answered her. Why didn’t she ask the oyster?
Even the professor had to do so. The oyster was the court of
last resort, and it was in session before her; but the old
view-point had so walled in her vision that she could not even
see the decision before her eyes.
To read things out of books requires a former experience of
things. Let us go back to things.--WILLIAM I. CRANE,
“Journal of the National Education Association,” 1905.
(3224)
=Things versus Men=--See FORGIVENESS.
=Thinkers=--See CHARACTER.