there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A school master will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in class than a {…} genius. {…} His task is not to produce extravagant intellectuals but good Latinists, arimeticians and sober decent folk. {…} We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds always heal. {…} they create their art in spite of school. Once dead and enveloped by the comfortable nimbus of remoteness, they are paraded by the schoolmasters before other generations of students as showpieces and noble examples. {…} {T}ime and again the ones who are detested by their teachers {…} are afterwards the ones who add to society's treasure.
( Hermann Hesse )
[ Beneath the Wheel ]
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