Is history our crystal ball?

THE EDITOR: My dad Anthony Mora was an avid reader, and my mom Mathilda was a teacher in the village school. Of course, Arouca was a quiet village in my youth. Sugar cane trailers passed down Albert Street and our lookout told us that the cane was coming and we lined up waiting to pull the cane stalks off the trailer. The driver was a mess as he headed to the Orange Grove Sugar Estate.

I was also witness to the many, many books which occupied our home. Dad built a library which covered an entire wall and overflowed with books. I saw him sitting and reading when he was at home, and even in his later years he read, and without his spectacles.

He had a large book (hard cover and the size of an old dictionary) which was full of quotes. He gave it to me, because he recognised that I was picking up his love for reading and history. The name of the book is The Great Thoughts. The following quotes made an impact on me, maybe because of the profession that chose me.

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow” – John Dewey, Oct 20, 1859-June 1, 1952.

“I cannot teach a person anything, I can only make them think” – Socrates, death 399 bce (ancient Greece.)

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn” – Einstein, March 14, 1879-April 18, 1955.

“Don’t just teach your children to read, teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything” – George Carlin (comedian), May 12, 1937-June 22, 2008

“The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people” – an African proverb.

After The Great Thoughts, Daddy handed me a ten-page document with the heading “Isocrates” (436-338 bce) – bce means before common era. This term was used before the use of BC (before Christ.). Isocrates was a teacher of oratory rather than a politician. He never wrote a book. He composed his orations to be read by others.

The following is an excerpt taken from Areopagiticus – A Few Wise Laws Wisely Administered. (From the Areopagitic Oration written to persuade Athens to return to the Constitution of Solon.)

“…They, on the contrary, knew that virtue is not promoted by laws, but by the habits of every-day life, and that most people turn out men of like character to those in whose midst they have severally been brought up. For where there are a number of laws drawn up with great exactitude, it is proof that the city is badly administered; for the inhabitants are compelled to frame laws in great numbers as a barrier against offences. Those, however, who are rightly administered should not cover the walls of the porticoes with copies of laws, but preserve justice in their hearts; for it is not by decrees but by manners that cities are well governed…”

History was another love of my father and, no surprise, I developed an interest. What is said about the need to be very aware of history, and what happens if we do not learn from it? We will be destined to repeat the mistakes made. There is a lot that history can teach us.

ANNA MARIA MORA

counselling psychologist