To Light Another Lamp
Thought from the day, from Rabindranath Tagore:
A most important truth which we are apt to forget, is that a teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of this subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge, but merely repeats his lessons to his students, can only load their minds; he cannot quicken them. Truth not only must inform but inspire. If the inspiration dies out, and the information only accumulates, then truth loses its infinity. The greater part of our learning in the schools has been wasted because, for most of our teachers, their subjects are like dead specimens of once living things, with which they have a learned acquaintance, but no communication of life and love.
This comes from Tagore's essay 'An Eastern University', published in 1922 in the Creative Unity collection.
In Tagore's other essays that I flicked through in a borrowed book, I glimpsed ideas on the nation state that predate by decades the debate current in International Relations. I now can't wait until my package arrives from New Delhi. Like all great writers, he is still a man for our times.
