"The mind of a child is like the acorn; its powers are folded up, they do not yet appear, but they are all there."
— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
J. Johnson
Date
1814
Metaphor
"The mind of a child is like the acorn; its powers are folded up, they do not yet appear, but they are all there."
Metaphor in Context
LOOK at that spreading oak, the pride of the village green! its trunk is massy, its branches are strong. Its roots, like crooked fangs, strike deep into the soil, and support its huge bulk. The birds build among the boughs; the cattle repose beneath its shade; the neighbours form groups beneath the shelter of its green canopy. The old men point it out to their children, but they themselves remember not its growth: generations of men one after another have been born and died, and this son of the forest has remained the same, defying the storms of two hundred winters.
Yet this large tree was once a little acorn; small in size, insignificant in appearance; such as you are now picking up upon the grass beneath it. Such an acorn, whose cup can only contain a drop or two of dew, contained the whole oak. All its massy trunk, all its knotted branches, all its multitude of leaves were in that acorn; it grew, it spread, it unfolded unfolded itself by degrees, it received nourishment from the rain, and the dews, and the well adapted soil, but it was all there. Rain, and dews, and soil, could not raise an oak without the acorn; nor could they make the acorn any thing but an oak.
The mind of a child is like the acorn; its powers are folded up, they do not yet appear, but they are all there. The memory, the judgment, the invention, the feeling of right and wrong, are all in the mind of a child; of a little infant just born; but they are not expanded, you cannot perceive them.
(Hymn X, pp. 83-7)
Yet this large tree was once a little acorn; small in size, insignificant in appearance; such as you are now picking up upon the grass beneath it. Such an acorn, whose cup can only contain a drop or two of dew, contained the whole oak. All its massy trunk, all its knotted branches, all its multitude of leaves were in that acorn; it grew, it spread, it unfolded unfolded itself by degrees, it received nourishment from the rain, and the dews, and the well adapted soil, but it was all there. Rain, and dews, and soil, could not raise an oak without the acorn; nor could they make the acorn any thing but an oak.
The mind of a child is like the acorn; its powers are folded up, they do not yet appear, but they are all there. The memory, the judgment, the invention, the feeling of right and wrong, are all in the mind of a child; of a little infant just born; but they are not expanded, you cannot perceive them.
(Hymn X, pp. 83-7)
Categories
Provenance
Reading. Metaphor brought to my attention by Kathleen Lubey.
Citation
Hymns in Prose for Children, by the Author of Lessons for Children, 16th edition, much enlarged (London: J. Johnson, 1814).
Date of Entry
03/08/2014
