You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But You Can't Make Him Drink
It is a common presumption that the ready availability of knowledge in and of itself is not sufficient to inspire learning. In his play
There is, however, just as much indication that someone who enjoys reading one book will immediately read another, and that literacy is the greatest incentive to learn that one person can ever bestow upon another. Parents glow when they hear their child utter his first word; teachers report the elation of seeing a student sparkle at the moment of discovery; and what kid hasn’;t beamed from ear to ear when the teacher calls on her and she has the right answer?
Alexander Pope, in
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
Thus, the saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’;t make him drink” denies the existence of human curiosity. The only reason people won’;t think is that they have been discouraged from doing so by those people who want to keep them uneducated. Yet the history of the disenfranchised in America (African-Americans, Irish, Italians) who have thrived, and even set up their own educational systems after being cut out of society’;s schools, proves the contrary. Maybe you can keep a good horse down, but not a good person.
REALITY CHECK
Senior Citizens and Dog Food
As baby boomers dominated American commerce in the 1960s, rumors began circulating that senior citizens on fixed incomes were being driven to eat dog food. The image of Grandma and Grandpa being saved from starvation by a $1.15 can of Fido Food was disturbing. Ironically, it may have been fed by an old episode of
