and the old which the recent
generations did not possess, and from the absence of which much
deformity and sorrow has come to be.
The little girl could quickly understand from the rapt moments of her
own production, how disordering a thing it is to bring foreign matter to
one's mental solution in an abrupt fashion. She saw that the
organisation of ideas for expression is a delicate process; that it
never occurs twice the same, and that the genuine coherence is apt to be
at its best in the first trial, for one of the essences of the rapture
of production is the novelty of the new relation. There were times in
the forenoons when I met halting stages and was ready possibly to banter
a moment. I very quickly encountered a repulse, if she were in the
thrall. She would wave her hand palm outward before her face--a mistake
of meaning impossible.
Now she had only learned to write two years before, this detail
purposely postponed. I did not undertake to correct spelling, permitting
her to spell phonetically, and to use a word she was in doubt of. What I
wanted her to do was to say the things in her soul--if the expression
can be forgiven.
I believe (and those who do not believe something of the kind will not
find the forthcoming ideas of education of any interest) that there is a
sleeping giant within every one of us; a power as great in relation to
our immediate brain faculties, as the endless string is great in
relation to one bead. I believe that every great moment of expression
in poetry and invention and in every craft and bit of memorable human
conduct, is significant of the momentary arousing of this sleeping giant
within. I believe that modern life and modern education of the faculties
of brain and memory are unerringly designed to deepen the sleep of this
giant. I believe, under the influence of modern life on a self-basis,
and modern education on a competitive basis, that the prison-house
closes upon the growing child--that more and more as the years draw on,
the arousing of the sleeping giant becomes impossible; that the lives of
men are common on account of this, because the one perfect thing we are
given to utter remains unexpressed.
I believe by true life and true education that the prison-house can be
prevented from closing upon the growing child; that the giant is eager
to awake; that, awakened, he makes the thoughts, the actions, the smiles
and the words of even a child significant.
I believe that an
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