Without Lifting A Finger

You say he was not political. Do you mean that he was apolitical? Because some people would say that the apolitical is just one variety of the political.  No, not apolitical, I would rather say anti-political. He thought that politics brought out the worst in people. It brought out the worst in people and also brought to the surface the worst types in society. He preferred to have nothing to do with it.  Did he preach this anti-political politics in his classes?  Of course not. He was very scrupulous about not preaching. His political beliefs you discovered only after you got to know him better.  You say his politics were Utopian. Are you implying they were unrealistic?  He looked forward to the day when politics and the state would wither away. I would call that Utopian. On the other hand, he did not invest a great deal of himself in these Utopian longings. He was too much of a Calvinist for that.  Please explain.  You want me to say what lay behind C...

 ‘I do not intend to be an examination coach for the rest of my life,’ he said. ‘It is something I am doing for the present, something I happen to be qualified to do, in order to make a living. But it is not my vocation. It is not what I was called into the world to do.’  Called into the world. More and more strange.  ‘If you would like me to explain my philosophy of teaching I can do so,’ he said. ‘It is quite brief, brief and simple.’  ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘let us hear your brief philosophy.’  ‘What I call my philosophy of teaching is in fact a philosophy of learning. It comes out of Plato, modified. Before true learning can occur, I believe, there must be in the student’s heart a certain yearning for the truth, a certain fire. The true student burns to know. In the teacher she recognizes, or apprehends, the one who has come closer than herself to the truth. So much does she desire the truth embodied in the teacher that she is prepared to burn her old self up to a...

          What I call my philosophy of teaching is in fact a philosophy of learning. It comes from Plato, modified. Before true learning can occur, I believe, there must be in the student's heart a certain yearning for the truth, a certain fire. The true student burns to know. In the teacher she recognizes, or apprehends, the one who has come closer than herself to the truth. So much does she desire the truth embodied in the teacher that she is prepared to burn her old self up to attain it. For his part, the teacher recognizes and encourages the fire in the student, and responds to it by burning with an intenser light. Thus together the two of them rise to a higher realm. So to speak. *** Nice, if untenable. Something only a teacher could wish for.