The Red Kerchief - A Story

Happy Christmas to you!  Please pardon my lack of posting - an ill habit I have fallen into of late due to this thing called "Life" which keeps intruding on my (perhaps not too successful) attempts to produce gems of twenty-first century literature.  (Ahem.  Anyway.)

The following is a bit of historical fiction - the first I've ever really written, as far as I recall - and as such it (obviously) does not pretend to be a strictly true story though it attempts to give a glimpse of a very real man.  The beauty of historical fiction is, though, that something very like this could have happened.  And who knows? Maybe it did.

+JMJ

The Red Kerchief

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

            John Adam Davidson stood on the corner, watching the pigeons across the street.  He looked, by his mother’s declaration –  and his own agreement – just about as smart and proper as any boy could look.  With his jacket and suspenders and grey trousers, newly acquired from his brother Paul, together with a fine little watch that his uncle had gifted him for his last birthday, John Adam was the picture of perfection.  The high-minded lad nodded sharply, bobbing his driving cap approvingly as he thought over again how his aunts and mother had admired him that morning.  Yes, he had to admit it – for a precocious young gentleman of six years he was a very fine specimen indeed.  John Adam scampered back to the park a few yards behind him as the traffic on the road increased and the pigeons scattered.  He scrambled up onto a wrought-iron bench and kicked his legs thoughtfully as he contemplated the bustle of the London streets, the tea his mother would serve in half an hour (and which he would not be there for if he could help it – an afternoon running in the park was much superior to an hour of being made to sit still while listening to women’s talk), and the large sign above the grocer’s which shouted to the busy city in bold black letters, “WHAT PRICE CHURCHILL?”  And it was a very fine sign indeed, John Adam thought, if for no other reason than because he, John Adam, could read it.  But it was better than that, he supposed upon reflection.  It was not at all like those horrid little smudgy letters in his speller at home.  Instead it was big and brave and did not care what people thought.  It did not cower in the corner of the page, half-unreadable, as his school lessons did.  He returned to the roadside for a more precise examination of the advertisement in question.  Really, he thought, it was more like –

            “John Adam!”

            The boy halted for a second, glanced over his shoulder to see nurse hurrying to catch him up, and then suddenly grinned.  He spun on the heels of his old black shoes and darted down the road with a look on his face that could have rivaled the expression of the infant Hermes when the child-god stole his divine brother’s cows.  Now this, John Adam thought, running, was real fun.  This was cleverness itself.  This was, in fact, adventure.  Where the idea had come into his head from he was not sure, but neither did he care.  He ran through the crowded streets, dodging and ducking and weaving, all the while waving a kerchief – a little red one he had appropriated that morning from his sister’s drawer – above his careless head and shouting “What price Churchill?  What price Churchill?  What price Churchill!” as loud as he could for no reason at all.

            He turned a corner and dashed up the block, passing houses and shops until he came to the Horse Guards Parade.  The mischievous child made to speed by the Admiralty buildings, still shouting to the skies, “What price Churchill!  What price Church – oh!”   Reaping the fruits of his unwary escapade, the boy now found himself staring up into the face of the big bald man whom he had run into full-force as the latter came around the side of a building. 

            “Well, what price Churchill?” the man asked, his eyes twinkling and a smile tugging at his mouth.  John Adam stood and stared for a moment, dumbstruck.  Then, at last:

            “Tupp – tuppence, sir? I’ve only got so much.”  The boy uttered his remark quietly and rather shamefacedly, producing the last of his birthday money from a trouser pocket.  The man laughed warmly and asked, “Will it buy us victory?”  John Adam shrugged. 

            “Might,” the child admitted very quietly, not really sure what to make of the question.  He backed away a little, kerchief clutched tightly in his hot fingers, still looking up at the stranger.  Just then, however, he felt a firm hand on his shoulder and suddenly his ears were full of his nurse’s scolding tones.  What her words were, though, he did not know.  He was absorbed in watching the bald man, who had turned and was now walking over to the Houses of Parliament.   There was an air about him; something grand that left an impression.  And yet he seemed – sad.  That was the word.  Sad.  What price Churchill? John Adam wondered.

            Two days later, in the wee hours, the man was sitting in an office.  It had been a difficult night and, unable to make further progress in his work, he intended to leave now and go to bed.  It was late – or, more properly, early – and in the darkness of a very black morning he felt both tired and discouraged.  He took up his hat and, donning his coat, made to head for home.  Stepping out into the duskiness and chilling silence of the streets, he sighed.  He reached behind him to close the door, but, as he did so, trod on something that crackled like stiff paper.  He looked down and, to his mild surprise, found that someone had tried to jam a stuffed, squishy envelope under the door.  Curious, he picked it up and carefully opened it at the excessively wetted paper corner.  Into his hand fell two pence, and a red kerchief on which was inked in a childish scrawl, “TupHenS foRe cHurChiL! cHurcHiL fUr VikToRy!!!”  The bald man smiled.

The Elevation

Today I offer another poem, this time of recent composition.  I haven't much to say about it except that it follows, in some measure, the speaker's stream of consciousness and is meant to be more a compilation of the speaker's thoughts at the moment of the Elevation than anything too heavily theological (not that I object to such things, though!).  Thus, without further ado:

+JMJ

The Elevation

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

Sweet smoke-clouds waft over the silence –

A stillness pervades eager air –

As lifted above the high table,

Of Presence a few are aware.

O halo of light in hard darkness!

White purity over fine gold!

How comes it, my Lord, that You dwell here?

But of this no man is yet told

Gracious gift of the Father to mankind –

Sons of Adam and Atreus all!

Crippled with cravings corrosive

And cursed with the death of the Fall

Yet strangely is given, this goodness –

Upon tongues of traitors He rests

Calling in voice of thin silence

Whom Angels taste not nor request

Thus man in his desert partaketh

In Manna he never deserved

Into his house there descendeth

The one only who perished unswerved

Then round the stone table they gather

The ones who deep mystr’y behold

Eternity blending with time -

Eclipse of new, ancient and old

Simplicity of Godly glory

Comes down like the fall of soft dew

And hear now the words from the Logos -

Bold, good, wild, utter, and True!

Does not our blood rush in triumph?

Do not our souls pound yet amain?

Here in our midst is Existence!

And Beauty Himself is not vain.

Exulting – an ecstatic vigor!

Truly each, every has read –

Receiving for once is Becoming;

These children are raised from the dead.

King’s blood burns surely within them –

Divinity’s untainted flow,

And through dimm’ed veil of the senses

Perceiving the One whom they know.

The silence gives way to proud organ

And fades in the thoughts of men’s time

But still in the silence there whispers

One constant and eternal rhyme –

And only they shall foreknow it

Who took what they, unworthy, love –

And rev’renced with filial wonder

A child, a lord, and a dove.

The Madness to the Method

+JMJ

Pardon my pause in posting!  Life has been on triple speed and as of late I've not had much time to pursue the art of blogging.  Nevertheless, here is a poem I wrote for my English professor last semester when she required me to use a particular analytical method on a paper.  While the Method was misery, the poem it produced - in the style of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - was, I think, well worth it.  

The Madness to the Method: A Highly Imperfect Poem for a Highly Infuriating Tool

By Caitlin Clancy

Let us go then, you and I,

Our good senses to defy,

And use methodic madness

For the English teacher’s gladness.

With its tedium

Of broken argument,

The Method wanders with insidious intent,

Into the minds of unsuspecting youth

And rubs its claws

Upon the light of truth.

But do not ask what

More cannot be done –

For, quicker than words run,

There will be time

To murder, uncreate,

That awful thing,

Which, dropped onto your plate,

Has, questioning,

Beat you much

But seldom given aid –

And drowned the voice

Of muse-like fair mermaid

It seems to me that Method

Is a pin

That sticks the panicked poet

To a wall –

In jest, perhaps,

Or some half-cruel sport,

Where aching writer cannot make retort

And I’ll confess me very unsurprised

To find Method on a table, etherized,

And hear its dying voice recall,

Yes, drowning with a dying fall –

But I shall not much miss it,

No, not at all.

Omnipotence & Analysis

+JMJ

The following poem came into my head some time ago as I was getting up from that blessed state which kindergartners shun and college students find indispensable: the nap.  (Which, now that I think of it, may explain the presence of sleep reference.)  While most of my daydreams and half-waking musings are not worth a ha'penny, I thought this one worth the quill and ink.  I offer it for your judgment alongside a bit of my own analysis, included below. 

“Omnipotence”

By Caitlin M. Clancy
Copyright 2011, 2012

The last drop of ink

From a weary pen

The snarl of beasts

In the lion’s den

The grandeur of Places

Both far and deep

The placid breath’s rhythm –

A child’s sleep.

For who can decide,

Or else can see,

The meaning that one

At once is three?

Who can know,

Or who recall,

The sweet of wine,

The sting of gall?

Only Him

Who never sleeps

Yet who in anguish,

Bloody, weeps.

Recall Him, world,

And do not turn –

Your life will last

Unless you spurn.

To give a bit of my own explanation/analysis: 

The title that has been applied thus far refers to the first series of images – all things that God can see at once, though we cannot (not just in terms of place, but of time as well, since God exists outside of time).  The images include both minute details, like a child’s breathing, as well as things that exist in a broader, more obvious scope ("places/Both far and deep").  The pen, besides being the instrument of the writer, is a relatively modern image while the lion’s den is from long ago – from the story of Daniel. The second half of the poem (“For who can decide…”) asks, in essence, who else but God can know and see everything?  Who but he is Omnipotent?  The final part of the poem (“Recall…”) turns to the audience – the world – and offers a solemn reminder of the choice the world has to make between eternal life and its alternative. (Also, just a detail I happened to notice and find interesting: the first image can show both that God sees things past and present, and also that God’s eye is, so to speak, upon me, the writer, even as I compose the poem.  And upon you as you read it.  Bears pondering, no?)

The Dance of Midnight Noon

+JMJ

The Dance of Midnight Noon

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

The moon

Upon the silver lake

Bids the mid-night

Faeries wake –

Softly, softly!

Stir no leaf –

Bring no mortals

To our heath!

So whisp’ring wind

Wisps and blows

The beam-bathed waves

Where there grows

A dance, a hunt,

A play, a thrill –

Solemn, silent,

Silent, still.

There comes no sound

Of lathe or bill,

Yet war is fought

On yonder hill

And on the beam-bathed

Bath of beasts

The light-foot nymphs

Of woodlands feast

They drink the moon

And take the dark

And rest white hands

On willow-bark;

Ten thousand ships

They launch and glide

In the breath of

Even-tide [1]

And noiseless knock

And break and hark –

The fight is long

While it is dark.

But soon the waning,

Sleeping spark

Of northern star

Fades in the arc

Of coming grey

And fading moon –

The last farewell

Of midnight noon.

And as the dark

Becomes the light

The mortal’s day

Becomes their night

And all is as

It was before –

Save the whisper,

Evermore:

Softly, softly!

Stir no thought –

Lest those of mortal flesh

Be brought.

---

[1] Refers both to evening – or night in this case – and also to the calm “tide” of the lake.

Of Mortality and Poetry

Today I brought out a poem that I wrote earlier this year and hadn't thought about in quite a while.  I'll not give an explanation of it at present - I think it is sometimes best to encounter a piece of writing on your own first and plumb the depths of thought behind it at a later date.  Nevertheless, I hope you will read it and, perhaps, find something in it that resonates with you.    

+JMJ

Of Mortality and Poetry

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

In silence spin we

Golden lays,

The web to hold

Our works and days; 

In senseless time,

Unspoken hour,

The fruits of minds

Burst forth and flower,

But moments pass

And then are gone –

And who are we

To linger on? 

So humble pass we,

Leaving lays,

For silent works

And golden days.  

Xavier

The following is a very short story I drafted this past spring and read at last Friday's Agora Poetry, Song & Story Night.  (For those of you who don't know,  Agora nights are delightful & enriching cultural "get togethers" put on at regular intervals by the faculty and students of Belmont Abbey College.  Should you ever have the chance to attend one, I highly recommend you do.)

+JMJ

Xavier

By Caitlin M. Clancy

Copyright 2012

            A bright shimmer flashed across the rim of the sickle moon, tracing the pale crescent’s otherworldly edge with a fairy finger of light.  Below, the little watcher sighed, shifting his restless, tousled head among the fallen fir boughs.  It was quiet tonight.  Where are you going, son?  he heard his father ask again, the kind, rolling tones, drawn up as by a net from a fathomless sea, rising obediently from the recesses of his mind; a mind that, though young, was already deep and broad.  A mind like a vast, peaceful ocean at night – an ocean visible only to the watchful ear of a silent soul; an endless pool of breathing waves detectable only by its steady, thunderous tide washing in on unseen shores.  A mind, in fact, awake.   

            Xavier drew a steady breath of the cool, clear night air blowing in from off the lake.  It tasted of pine and fresh water and even, he imagined, of cloud.  He gazed up at the moon, his dark eyes bright with the sliver’s reflection, white as pearl yet sharp as the blade of a knife.  That, he decided, was why faeries danced of old.  That was why satyrs reveled in the dark of ancient woods and why nymphs crept out and played about the boughs of sacred groves, whispering their songs of joy and fear.  That was why he now lay with his own back upon fallen fir boughs, arms tucked behind his head, and thought with a boy’s mind the thoughts of men.  That, too, was why he spent hours silent, alone in the black woods, and listened for their voices – the voices of that marvelous company that walked the world before man dared to tread beyond his doorposts.  That was why he lay listening – listening, and longing, too, for another voice, a voice that would harmonize the clamorous murmurings of the ages, a voice that would teach them all to speak.  A voice he knew had come. 

            Where are you going, son?  Xavier recalled the room – small, old, and dim.  He remembered the touch of the doorjamb’s wet wood and the feel of the worn rug beneath his sandals.  He remembered, too, how, though his eager feet remained planted in the flickering light of the room, his hand had already plunged outside, where it rested, hidden, in the sable folds of night’s own cloak, long past the half-light cast by the fire.  Where are you going, son? his father asked, his shadow-veiled face calm and his imperceptible eyes deep, looking for all the world – and perhaps for something else, too – the fuller image of his child.  Where are you going? 

            To find it, Xavier replied, watching as a small, knowing smile touched his father’s features and played on his thoughtful visage; his face was now almost entirely hidden in the dusky light.  Go, then, he said, I am here for you.  Xavier took a step outside into the breezy night and the wind immediately reached out to ruffle his earthen-brown curls.  Xavier nodded, staring ahead into the massive, barely distinguishable ebony forms that were the trees.  Yes, he would go.  And perhaps he would understand.  And he would listen.  Speak, then, that I may know you, he thought, pleading silently with the voice he longed for, the voice he loved.  Your servant hears.  

And Now, A Cultural Interlude...

Plato said that “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” *  In light of this most wise observation - and because I love the violin - here is an incredibly beautiful piece that a friend of mine introduced me to just yesterday:

 Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin, Part 1

and

Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin, Part 2

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.

* Thanks to http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/879.Plato for this quote. 

Riddle me this...

An addition to the "Riddles" page:

Riddle the Third:

I break but am not broken.

I wake but am not woken.

What am I?

Riddle the Fourth:

Artful, wise,

Has many eyes –

Fingerless does

Weaver’s work  

Hunts like

Vengeful, ruthless Turk. 

What is it? 

Answers may be found on the "Answers" page. Good luck!

Poem: Thoughts of a Young Bride

The following poem came into my head one day this summer while I was working as a volunteer for Gabriel Project & Project Rachel (of Arlington, VA).

While its content is, in some measure, self-explanatory, I nonetheless wish to point out that it attempts - in a very small way - to recapture part of a mentality we are not much used to in this day and age; namely, a mentality that accepts the concept of arranged marriage.

While I do not and would not say that we should make an about-face and return to the practice of choosing our children's partners, I do think that it is good for us to examine and remember how our predecessors were, sometimes literally, "given" in marriage.  I think (and take this as you will) that there is an overemphasis in our culture on feelings to the point that we have come to see them as the sole "glue" of the marital vows.  It therefore behooves us, I contend, to recall that the marriages of our forefathers, their arranged nature notwithstanding, were wholly valid. (I speak, of course, of those unions where both parties honestly consented, truthfully said "I do," whether they liked the idea or not - any "marriage" without said consent was not a marriage at all however it may have appeared, and thus is not the subject of my discussion.)

That said, let me offer a few questions for your reflection: first, why were (and are) arranged marriages lawful and valid?  Second, is our modern conception of marriage truly as superior to The Old Ways as we seem to think?  Lastly, what is it that we have gained by dispensing with the duty to marry (where one is not called to do otherwise), and what have we lost because of it?

Thoughts of a Young Bride

By Caitlin Clancy

Silk of my mothers

Runs through my fingers –

Cool, white, and beautiful.

So they all say.

Shall I be married, then,

As Papa wishes?

Shall I be wed upon

Michaelmas day?

Or shall I run away,

Run away far?

Forsaking my mother,

Grieving my father,

Leaving my brothers,

Run away far?

But child-thoughts leave me,

Run away far,

Chastened by duty,

Vanquished by fear,

Words of the prophets

My insolence mar.

Yes, I will meet you,

My lord and my master,

In fear though I greet you

The one I know not.

And I shall have peace then

As you gently lift me –

A dove on the threshold

Of marriage is caught.

A Commentary in the Spirit of "The Screwtape Letters": Part Three

And thus we proceed to the final installment of the Public Proponent's commentary on "The Inherent Danger of Rationality in Society":

 I must, I fear, admit that I can offer no one-size-fits-all cure for your particular brainiac. I do, however, have a few pointers that may be helpful in eradicating such breeds as the garden-variety philosopher and the questioning undergraduate (more persistent strains such as the John Paul II Complex types may require a special remedy):  

Suggestion One: Induce them to panic.  Panic is an excellent tool for clouding Thinking and inducing faulty Reasoning.  It can stop a man who has begun to think dead in his tracks and slows those in whose rotting minds this disease is more deeply implanted.

Suggestion Two: Help them ask the wrong question.  If nothing else, it will at least cause them to get the wrong answer.  If you use this as a follow up to Suggestion One, make certain that once you have got them in the thick of their panic, on the brink of crisis, you must be sure that the only question that enters their heads – should any need enter their heads at all – is “What can I do?”  (What they don’t realize, you see, and where the great danger lies, is when they ask “What can’t I do?”)  See that they repeat this like parrots until they believe, as, thankfully, a good many already do, that there exists no positive answer.

Suggestion Three: Make them feel overworked.  And then show them how Thinking causes them to do so much more work than is really necessary.  Show them how blissfully happy the Ignorant are.  Most of all, show them that Knowledge is the poison apple from the tree of Right Thought; an apple that traps them in the worst moral, social, and spiritual dilemmas and assure them that if they were only to go without this bitter fruit they, too, could be at their ease and wipe the sweat of Responsibility from their beaten brows.

I am sorry to have no more suggestions to offer at present, but I plead my two-fold excuse thusly: that I have not had sufficient time to establish a short, safe and complete path to the Destruction of all “Thoughtful” types and would be loath to give you advice I later came to believe not good.  Also, though I do have a good bit more where this came from, it is partially conjecture and I would that it were presented in another form and labeled more clearly as such.  Until the release of my upcoming book then (Sabotaging those with Sense & Sensibility), I leave you with this Food for Thoughtlessness and remind you that, as a well-known German Fhürer once indicated, governments should count it a blessing when their citizens don’t think[1]. 

---

[1] Paraphrased; Adolf Hitler. 

A Commentary in the Spirit of "The Screwtape Letters": Part Two

The following is a continuation of His Smugness the Public Proponent's commentary begun in the preceding post.  It will be concluded next week in Part Three. 

Those who have thought themselves even ankle-deep into this accursed pool also believe, by and large, in something called Conscience, which subject would require a whole ‘nother essay alone.  The point remains, however, that these Thinkers have become a disease that knows no cure.  They refuse to be pacified into submission or talked back into the proper state of uninquisitiveness.  The hateful whirrings of their mental machine, once started, do not suffer themselves to be impeded.  Let us be thankful there are so few and, since we cannot treat them, instead turn our efforts to stifling their recent growth. 

Some of my followers, and even a select number of my friends, have recommended that the best course of action is to ignore them.  Let the fools be, they say; the opiate character of their pursuits will render them harmless in time.  But the problem, I contend, is not such a simple one.  These thinkers have all too often proved their resilient nature.  “For Zion’s sake,” they declare that they “will not be silent,” and “for Jerusalem’s sake” they “will not be quiet.”  They declare this and things of similar sentiment with their deeds as well, right up through the last snap of malcontent muscles pulled tight across the rack.  Very well then, some say – if the brutes cannot be ignored, let us crush them!  But herein we of steady and unmoving mind too often take an equally false step.

Though we hate their clamor and their unceasing attempts to rouse the nation, we cannot attack and finish them head-on as we would surely like.  By too open a persecution we risk making them Martyrs and drawing still more men down the hazardous path of their cause.  No, we cannot disregard or dismember them.  Hemlock and lions only get one so far.  The course we take must become subtle, insidious, almost meek in appearance.  It must seek the Public Good, and a very general one at that, for under such guise we may even take in a good number of their side, quite unawares.  Better to hide the fangs beneath the wool and then fleece them when the opportunity presents itself, as I’m sure my good friend Screwtape would agree.  But I get on too quickly.  

A Commentary in the Spirit of "The Screwtape Letters": Part One

Note: this work is by Caitlin M. Clancy and is the first part of a serial post.  The fictional persons of the Moralist - who may appear in later posts - and the Public Proponent, though certainly her creations, do not necessarily represent her views or opinions despite their proximity to her cranial faculties. (Though the discerning reader may quickly tell whose ideas, of the two, are closer if not occasionally identical to her own. That said, let us begin.)

“The Inherent Danger of Rationality in Society, Or:

Why Men Who Think are Bad for Us

And Why We Ought to Quash Their Kind

And be Content With Mediocrity”

Cultural Commentary offered by His Smugness The Public Proponent

            Ah, the average!  Have you ever heard such a beautiful word?  It encompasses the universe of meanings enclosed in the terms “the usual,” “the normal,” or “the typical;” it is, in a word, the mediocre.  And is this not the very Golden Mean itself?  But we have seen, in recent days, a dangerous resurgence of a sort of human being who threatens the existence of this mean and the very foundations, the broad but shallow hyphae, of our precious society.  I mean, of course, the Man who Thinks.  

            You may have had the misfortune in school to learn that man is a rational animal.  This assertion, though absurd, is in one sense right: man is indeed born with rational faculties much as he is with arms or hair or organs.  The difference, though, and where most teachers fall through the cracks, comes in determining what kind of faculties our rationality is.  Most suppose it to be like the arms – useful, necessary, healthful things to have.  What they do not suppose, and what stands much closer to the truth, is that rational faculties most nearly resemble the human appendix.  Such faculties are, therefore, unavoidably present in natural man, but though they may cause no harm if steadfastly ignored, heaven forbid they should be used.  Use, you see, leads to a terrible inflammation – to that mental appendicitis called thinking.  And if you think those two conditions very unlike, take a closer look at their similarities: both cause pain, both impair normal functions, and both can become so persistent as to move one to visit a doctor (or, as the case may be, to seek Knowledge).  But I have rambled enough now to give you a right idea of rationality’s true substance, and must turn instead to my chief subject: those individuals who presently threaten our peace and security.

             These men, these Thinkers, these Philosophers – call ‘em what you will – are dangerous precisely because they retain this natural rational state and aggravate it to alarming levels. (And what man of sense does not know that Nature is defective, not to mention old-fashioned?  It is by no means to be heeded.) They deliberately and consciously seek out means of furthering their Understanding; they inquire into matters of importance to obtain Truth, regardless of the fact that they know (they know!) that what they find may not be to their liking.  Not only do they persist in these low and deplorable activities, they also seek to educate other men to do the same[1], and in this characteristic lies their greatest danger to us.  By Education they disturb society from the inside out.  They put questions into your head – some very simple, like why is that ‘right’? – and disturb the peaceful certainty you had before.   In fact, what questions they ask are almost (almost mind you) immaterial.  The act of questioning is bad enough to excite the beginnings of cogitation (or should I say contagion?).  But questions alone do not comprise their sole ammunition.  They also stir up our tranquil mental waters by feeding us pretty lines like “seek and ye shall find,” by asserting that “all men by nature desire to know,” and by convincing us that “our hearts are restless till they rest” in a being they call God.   Their presumption is truly intolerable!

---

[1] Let the reader note: learning is one thing, Education quite another.  The former should be permitted – nay, encouraged – to distract men and keep them from the latter, but care must be taken that the reverse does not become the case (see my recent article on “Schooling Sense out of the Masses”).