Robert Frost, 1962, on America’s future
The poet Robert Frost, about whom I’ve written a good deal and whose Collected Works are pictured at the top of my blog, gave a great many campus talks in his day. I’m currently reading a book of excepts from them entitled Robert Frost: Speaking on Campus.
Here’s part of a talk he gave at Agnes Scott in 1962, over fifty years ago. Frost almost never gave prepared speeches; he just talked about whatever was on his mind, and his conversation had a colloquial cadence:
Robinson Jeffers has just died, my distant friend…I admired his pessimism…it was a fresh, original pessimism—very dark, bitter.
And what a fine figure this is for throwing life away, you know. It’s not my figure. But it’s his…”Give your heart to the hawks.” It’s the title of the poem…
I never tried to deal with that. I just took it as a good black spot in my thoughts…he [also] says “shine, perishing republic” to us—“shine, perishing republic,”…
What are you going to do with that? Either let it alone or include it in my book. And the way I include it is that everything that shines, shines by perishing—candles, the sun, and me.
And then I don’t know what he does with it. That’s what I do with it. I think he’s darker than that. Mine is everything shines by perishing, everything…
And how long will the United States shine before it perishes? (I always say—you know, talking about money—I tell ’em I always charge more for prophecy than I do for history.) I don’t know how long we’re going to last. The song says, “It shall wave a thousand years.”
That’s a good long time. We’ve only spent two hundred of it. Thousand is—if you look at history—a good long time. It’s longer than most have done it. The great days of a nation are seldom anything like that. You’ve got to think of that.
…We’re squandering our light, almost to the world. It’s wonderful we are, wonderful shining thing we are. But you wonder about the economy of it…
I’m not trying to frighten you. I’m not scared if you’re not. But a thousand years evolves, you know. We’ve got lots of time to turn around in that time.
But don’t think we’re forever. We can’t be. Nothing is forever. Everything shines to perish, perishes to shine…
We don’t need to just burn like a prairie fire. That was Tom Paine’s idea of democracy. It was going to be a prairie fire that swept the world. This isn’t like that. This is a great steady flame—like Sirius, like the star Sirius—
Nobody knows in the universe anything that isn’t spending.
Frost sometimes sounded like a simple guy, but he most assuredly wasn’t.
R. Thompson (Frost): Choose Something Like a Star
That which burns brightest, burns hottest. At the heart of liberty lies self-reliance. A willingness to endure failure lies at the heart of self-reliance. The psychologically secure know that failure is only permanent if we fail to learn the lessons from our failures.
An inability to compete lies at the heart of animosity to America. Those who cannot do, teach… or become critics. The Left is built upon criticism.
Rather than risk failure, many would rather eliminate the contest.
I’ve never understood why that cheap shot — “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” — by George Bernard Shaw has come to be accepted wisdom. My own life has been immeasurably enriched by some very fine teachers, with first-class intellects and deep understanding of their subjects.
Ann,
The absolute, societal need for fine teachers, “with first-class intellects and deep understanding of their subjects” is indisputable.
But the finest music teachers are not virtuosos. Nor can they be as, “If I don’t practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.” Jascha Heifetz
Ground breaking theorists and nuclear physicists do not teach high school physics.
Michael Jordan failed as a coach/manager. I am unaware of any superstar athlete having also achieved fame as a teacher of their sport.
“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” is only offensive, if it is intended as a put-down rather than as an objective observation.
The ability to teach is an entirely different ability/talent, than is the ability to excel at an endeavor.
“I am unaware of any superstar athlete having also achieved fame as a teacher of their sport.”
Frank Robinson. Charlie Root. Johnny Sain (Spahn and Sain and…) was amazing, maybe the best pitching coach ever. In modern times, Mark McGwire has been pretty good, ditto Dave Righetti.
It’s possible. But it is a different skill set.
The future is lost to an amoral People and aborted Posterity.
In my freshman year the school tried to get Carl Sandberg to address the student body. He was unavailable but we got Robert Frost instead. He ended up reciting several of his poems in a very quiet voice that we could barely hear, but we knew we had been exposed to a class act. And I was moved to read more of Frost, whom I came to like a great deal. More than a few of my classmates felt they had been shortchanged, though.
Geoffrey Britain:
“An inability to compete lies at the heart of animosity to America.”
Actually, generally speaking, Left activists are capable competitors.
Geoffrey Britain:
“many would rather eliminate the contest.”
That’s competitive.
Actually, generally speaking, Left activists are capable competitors.
They aren’t competitors, they’re a bunch of cowardly parasitic rabbits waiting for the two warriors to weaken and wound themselves, then they will call in an artillery strike, safely out of range, and then collect the loot.
The jungle of Earth has many survival methods and ways to gather resources, but that doesn’t mean symbiosis is the same as parasitism.
That’s competitive.
It means they are afraid of something and wish to be in safe rooms.
I’ve never understood why that cheap shot – “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”
The cheap shot is made by those who are incompetent at either fields.
Rarely does a human ever exhibit talent at both teaching and being a specialist in a field. Some of it is lack of time, some of it is lack of interest.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
January 2nd, 2016 at 3:41 pm
* * *
That was a very perceptive comment, and also shows the double-edged quality of most maxims.
Teaching well IS doing.
Those who can’t run education unions.
What a great post! Frosts’ words caused me to look up “Give your heart to the hawks”, a book about mountain men in the 1800s. That search led to other books about great people whom I had never known about. Sigh…so many books, so little time. Thanks, Neo. In my own life, I have pretty much lived “A Road Not Taken”, and have never regretted it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PGS61EwnpU
This is a vid about Jin Young and why he chose to go with Wing Chun, and not merely to settle for a shelf life of athleticism in martial arts, resigned to only teaching new guys afterwards.
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Ann, Frost was not a good high school teacher at Pinkerton Academy, according to my grandfather. He didn’t like the job. Perhaps college students were more to his liking.
I think Joe is correct in noting that’s it’s a different skill set. Few teachers are going to be researchers or writers of the first water. But some are, and most have some competence.
It’s a matter of culture.
While eccentric scientists aren’t good at teaching masses of people, if they grew up in a culture where they had seniors to look to as a mentor, they would naturally reproduce the relationship. The culture would pass the information along using institutional experience and knowledge, even if the individuals in the relationship doesn’t know how it works.