It is
easier, and in some respects more advantageous, not to explain, but the
mischief of habituating children to bow to the unmeaning is so great
that I would face any inconvenience in order to get rid of it. All
kinds of objections, some of them of great weight, may be urged against
me, but the question is on which side do they preponderate? Is it no
objection to our present system that the simple laws most necessary to
society should be grounded on something which is unintelligible, that we
should be brought up in ignorance of any valid obligation to obey moral
precepts, that we should be unable to give any account of the commonest
physical phenomena, that we should never even notice them, that we
should be unaware, for example, of the nightly change in the position of
planets and stars, and that we should nevertheless busy ourselves with
niceties of expression in a dead tongue, and with tales about Jupiter
and Juno? For what glorious results may we not look when children from
their earliest years learn that which is essential, but which now, alas!
is picked up unmethodically and by chance? I cannot help saying all
this to you, for your Musae arrived just as my youngest brother came
home from Winchester.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190