A Poem

[klonk]

To save time and space and possibly some aggravation too, I wish to point out that several political points now debated on this board were throughly understood by Rudyard Kipling and explained in this 1919 poem. Mark, that, 1919. We can stop wrangling over them.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings



AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

[Michael]

Thanks for posting that poem. I went and looked up Copybook Headings. A simple reference that I perhaps am not old enough or British enough to have known.

The current financial crisis is a repeat of previous engineered economic collapses, just as the underpinnings of our debt-based monetary system are essentially the Babylonian system from thousands of years ago: usury plain and simple. None of it is new. Gimme some of that old time religion that bans usury of any kind and I would probably go along with everything else they suggested.

[shawnsegler]

Word is born.

S

[klonk]

I am appalled that children no longer do copybooks. Handwriting samples you are required to repeat ten times or more. You not only learned handwriting, but rudiments of grammar and common sense as well.

I suppose music students no longer practice scales either.

[klonk]

As a result of the replacement of copybook education with the new newness, we have this joke:

Teacher comes to the door of the house: "Little Johnny, I am displeased with your performance in school. I would speak to your mother."

"She ain't here! Honest!"

"Why little Johnny, where is your grammar!?"

"She ain't here neither!"

[Michael]

That was about the time I realized there was something seriously wrong with our education system. Not 100% of course, but serious problems.

[klonk]

Serious problems, I agree. I read this on a plastic bag:

"To avoid suffocation, keep away from babies and small children."

Good advice, no doubt, but not literate advice. Best keep yourself away from babies, on that account. They can hug something fierce, and small children kiss a lot. Stevenson wrote, "Write so that you cannot be misunderstood." Better had thus said the bag: Keep this bag away from children, so they do not suffocate.

I am sure that you, as a teacher of English to the Chinese, appreciate that English has its sharp logical edge within it. It is not difficult to be ridiculous in English. (I have no difficulty screwing up Chinese.)

What really pisses me off is we have a multi zillion dollar education racket going in this country, and too many of our own people can't read and write.

[Michael]

If I were a parent, I would definitely be home schooling or private schooling.

[klonk]

I don't think it would hurt, in the present crsis, if the educators involved had copied a hundred times, when young, "Not all is gold that glitters."