| Author | |
nicole-amdg
Forum Pro
Joined: April 16 2007
Location: Georgia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 387
|
| Posted: Aug 10 2007 at 12:55am | IP Logged
|
 |
|
I can't for the life of me remember exactly how it goes: something like "How can it be a large/great thing to teach many children about one thing and a small thing to teach your own children about everything," and it goes on.
You see how I have butchered it. I thought it was Chesterton, but with such an imperfect memory of the quotation itself I can't turn anything up on a search.
A little help?
__________________
Nicole
Wife to 
Mom to       
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Jane Ramsey
Forum All-Star
Joined: Jan 05 2007
Location: Florida
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 652
|
| Posted: Aug 10 2007 at 6:48am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I found it, Nicole!
I love this quote.
Here's a more lengthy version:
"Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question.
For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean.
To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area -- deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area -- providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area -- teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene: I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
from What's Wrong with the World
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
teachingmyown
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 20 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 5128
|
| Posted: Aug 10 2007 at 8:05am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Wow, I will be sure to print that one off!
__________________
In Christ,
Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
Remembering Today
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
nicole-amdg
Forum Pro
Joined: April 16 2007
Location: Georgia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 387
|
| Posted: Aug 10 2007 at 9:55am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Thank you, thank you! I am framing this above my desk! (And more immediately, sending it to a friend who is worrying over the possibility of giving up a teaching job to homeschool!)
__________________
Nicole
Wife to
Mom to
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
Forum Locked) 
4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: what's that quotation?
