Author: Henry David Thoreau (---.spacegate.com.ua)
Date: 01-30-06 09:26
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If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the
inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching
what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which
should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements
to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by
awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the
attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and
it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
CXLI
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
--William Shakespeare
Love is the beauty of the soul.
St. AugustineA God. The God. One word can make all the difference in the world.
- C.S. Lewis, In Religion