No matter how much we learn, there is always more knowledge to be gained. In this connection I am reminded of a short poem that has been in my mind over the years. It reads as follow: I used to think I knew I knew. But now I must confess. The more I know I know I know I know I know the less.
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,
That loved his learning better than mankind,
Though courteous to the worst; much falling he
Brooded upon sanctity.
No matter how much we learn, there is always more knowledge to be gained. In this connection I am reminded of a short poem that has been in my mind over the years. It reads as follow: I used to think I knew I knew. But now I must confess. The more I know I know I know I know I know the less.
We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
I wonder what especial sanctity attaches itself to fifteen minutes. It is always the maximum and the minimum of time which will enable us to acquire languages, etiquette, personality, oratory ... One gathers that twelve minutes a day would be hopelessly inadequate, and twenty minutes a wasteful and ridiculous excess.