Отрывок из книги
Herbert W. Collingwood
Published by Good Press, 2021
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I think I have lived long enough and under conditions which fit me to know human nature better than most men know books. Our present improved man came from a savage. Originally man was a confirmed dweller on the frosty side of the barn. As human life has developed, the tendency has been for this man to run for a warm place on the sunny side. In order to get there, his natural tendency has been to crowd some weaker brother back into the frost. We may not like to admit it, but as we have crowded poetry and imagination and love out of agricultural education, we have lost track of the thought that there is one great duty we owe to society for the great educational machine she has given us. That one great life duty is to try to carry some more unfortunate brother out of the frost into the comfort of the sunny side of the barn. We are too much in the habit of trying to leave this practical betterment to the Legislature or to the Federal Government, when it never can be done unless we do it ourselves, as a part of human sacrifice. You must remember that in spite of all our scientific work, the world is still largely fed and clothed by the plain farmers, whose stock in trade is largely human nature and instinct. The shadow which undoubtedly lies over farming today is due to the fact that too many of these men and women feel that they are booked hopelessly to spend their lives on the frosty side of the barn.
It is in large part a mental trouble, a feeling of deep resentment, such as in a very much smaller way came to me as a little boy, for you will see how real and true are the ideals of childhood. The great aim of all education should be to find some way of putting poetry and imagination into the hearts of the men and women who are now on the frosty side of the barn. There is more in this than any mere increase of food production, or increase of land values. A great industrial revolution is facing this nation. Such things have come before again and again. They were always threatening, and every time they appeared strong men and women feared for the future of their country. Yet in times past these dark storms have always broken themselves against a solid wall of contented and prosperous freeholders. They always disappear and turn into a gentle, reviving rain when they strike the sunny side of the barn. That is where the errors and mistakes of society are taken apart and remade, better than ever before, by skilled and happy workmen. It is on the frosty side of the barn, in the unhappy shadows, where men tear down and destroy without attempting to rebuild, for there can be no human progress except that which is finally built upon contentment and faith. Men and women must be brought to the sunny side of the barn if this nation is to remain the land of opportunity, and such men and women as we have here must do the work.
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