I found this quote serendipitously while looking for something totally different:
Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies which will occupy you for two years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I would like to remind you of an important point. Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life, save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.
John Alexander Smith, Speech to Oxford University students, 1914
Yes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when I finish homeschooling eight children, each and every one of them were equipped with an excellent rot detector? I would be vindicated.
2 thoughts on “Rot”
hmmm… are you saying that you’re not yet vindicated? =P
The “rot detector” is a great thing to have. Would that it wouldn’t be so one-sided to outside inconsistencies / influences, and more sensitive to internal tendencies and oddities.
I assume you’re talking about removing the mote from one’s own eye before trying to take the log out of my brother’s. Of course, that’s a much more difficult proposition. Yes, I do want my children to be able to detect the “rot” even in those things that I’ve erroneously taught them.
We do the best we can, all with our own motes (or logs), and pray that the Lord gives them wisdom.
hmmm… are you saying that you’re not yet vindicated? =P
The “rot detector” is a great thing to have. Would that it wouldn’t be so one-sided to outside inconsistencies / influences, and more sensitive to internal tendencies and oddities.
I assume you’re talking about removing the mote from one’s own eye before trying to take the log out of my brother’s. Of course, that’s a much more difficult proposition. Yes, I do want my children to be able to detect the “rot” even in those things that I’ve erroneously taught them.
We do the best we can, all with our own motes (or logs), and pray that the Lord gives them wisdom.