To keep things ticking over before tomorrow's post on The Red Wheelbarrow, here's a statement by WCW which should be placed above the door of every classroom.
The whole field of education is affected - There is no end of detail that is without significance.
... at present knowledge is placed before a man as if it were a stair at the top of which a DEGREE is obtained which is superlative.
nothing could be more ridiculous. To data there is no end. There is proficiency in dissection and a knowledge of parts but in the use of knowledge -
It is the imagination that -
That is: life is absolutely simple. In any civilized society everyone should know EVERYTHING there is to know about life at once and always. There should never be permitted, confusion -
There are difficulties to life, under conditions there are impasses, life may prove impossible - But it must never be lost - as it is today -
...
The effect of this realization will be the emplacement of knowledge into a living current - which it has always sought -
...
With decent knowledge to hand we can tell what things are for
(WCW, 'Spring and All', pp 139-40 - punctuation follows the printed text)
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(Every time I go back to 'Spring and All' I'm shocked to be reminded that it was first published in 1923 and yet how fresh it still reads. Books like this simply don't have a sell by date).
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