"But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame."
— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)
Date
August 31, 1837
Metaphor
"But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame."
Metaphor in Context
Of course, there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office, — to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.
(p. 69)
(p. 69)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Pagination keyed to Stephen Whicher's Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Organic Anthology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. <eBooks@Adelaide>
Date of Entry
03/31/2010
