Marianne Moore Quote

The StudentIn America, beganthe lecturer, everyone must have adegree. The French do not think thatall can have it, they don’t say everyone must go to college. Weincline to feel, here, that although it may be unnecessaryto know fifteen languages.one degree is not too much. With us, aschool—like the singing tree of whichthe leaves were mouths that sang in concert— is both a tree of knowledgeand of liberty— seen in the unanimity of collegemottoes, lux et veritas,Christo et ecclesiae, sapietfelici. It may be that wehave not knowledge, just opinions, that we are undergraduates,not students; we know we have been told with smiles, by expatriatesof whom we had asked, When willyour experiment be finished? Scienceis never finished. Secludedfrom domestic strife, Jack Bookworm led a college life, says Goldsmith;and here also as in France or Oxford, study is beset withdangers—with bookworms, mildews,and complaisancies. But someone in NewEngland has known enough to saythat the student is patience personified, a varietyof hero, patient of neglect and of reproach,—who can hold byhimself. You can’t beat hens tomake them lay. Wolf’s wool is the best of wool,but it cannot be sheared, becausethe wolf will not comply. With knowledge as with wolves’ surliness,the student studies voluntarily, refusing to be lessthan individual. Hegives him opinion and then rests upon it;he renders service when there isno reward, and is too reclusive for some things to seem to touch