Aaron Jagt
12/26/09
www.dollarhomeschool.com

Copybook Writing and Proverbs

It's been a little while since I wrote about the importance of recital in "Memory Training and the Mcguffey Readers". In it I focused mainly on the value of oral recital using the McGuffey Readers. It would be a mistake to leave off however, without also taking into account the value of written recital, or copybook writing. Just like declaiming aloud famous speeches and poems taught the principles of speech and elocution, copying essays and passages in written form taught Grammar, Vocabulary, correct form, and interesting styles and methods of writing. Finally, and most importantly, copywriting aided profoundly in the recall and memorization of the subject.

 Most people are familiar with the old punishment of writing a certain message down on a blackboard repeatedly. The purposes of this were two-fold. First, the boredom of repeating a certain task over and over again acted acted as a deterrent against a repetition of whatever infraction had been commited. Secondly, but more importantly, the repetition ingrained in the memory of the person the message written. These messages during the time of the Eclectic Education Series were usually proverbs, either from the Bible or some other source, most famously Poor Richards Almanac, which supplied quotations such as:

Take this remark from Richard poor and lame,
Whate’er’s begun in anger ends in shame.

The lack of proverbial wisdom in this day and age is a dangerous deficiency. The Proverb: "He who does not learn from his mistakes is doomed to repeat them" can be as easily applied to humanity as a whole as to a single man. Proverbs are the pithy result of bitter experience over many generations, and many are also given directly by God. To sum up the value of copybook writing and proverbs, I believe Rudyard Kipling said it best with this poem:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings
by Rudyard Kipling

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!