Magick Without Tears

EDUCATION 437 his cheque very neatly made out-and signed it by making his mark! The Railroad Man was naturally flabbergasted , and could not help exclaiming, "Yet you made all those millions of yours-what would you have been if only you had been able to read and write? "Doorkeeper at the Synagogue" was the prompt reply . His illiteracy had disqualified him when he applied for the job after landing. The story is not only true, but "of all Truth"; see my previous letter on "Certainty ." Books are not the only medium even of learning; more, what they teach is partial, prejudiced, meagre, sterile, uncertain, and alien to reality. It follows that all the best books are those which make no pretence to accuracy: poetry, theatre, fiction. All others date . Another point is that Truth abides above and aloof from intellectual expression, and consequently those books which bear the Magic Keys of the Portal of the Intelligible by dint of inspiration and suggestion come more nearly to grips with Reality than those whose appeal is only to the Intellect. "Didactic" poetry, "realistic" plays and novels, are contradictions in terms. P.P.S. One more effort: the above reminds me that I have said no word about the other side of the medal. There are many children who cannot be educated at all in any sense of the word. It is an abominable waste of both of them and of the teacher to push against brick walls. Yet one last point. I am as near seventy as makes no matter, and I am still learning with all my might. All my life I have been taught: governesses, private tutors, schools, private and public, the best of the Universities: how little I know! I have travelled all over the world in all conditions, from "grand seigneur," to "holy man"; how little I know! What then of the ninety-and-nine, dragged by the ears through suicide examinations, and kicked out of school into factory in their teens? They have learnt only just enough to facilitate the swallowing of the gross venal lies of the radio and the Yellow Press; or, if mother-wit has chanced to warn