Wednesday's thought for the day was:

One does not advance the swimming abilities of ducks by throwing the eggs in the water. -Multatuli (pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker), novelist (1820-1887)

As I did not get he full meaning of this saying coming from one of the few Dutch writers/philosophers of some importance; with the help of some friends I tried to find the source of the quote. We did and I translated this fragment from the context best as I could:


" May no one find a contradiction in my statement that we should leave it to Nature to decide what the thinking capacities of a child can work out.
Exactly because thinking must be learned we should not by producing untimely unwanted impressions (today's information flood?) dull or numb the sensibility for this learning.
One does not advance the swimming abilities of ducks by throwing the eggs in the water. There must have been hatching. This hatching task is taken on by faithfull mother hen Nature.
Maybe this whole prescription [] would not have been needed, if in our schools..... we had not been thrown into the pond like eggs.
Who after all this still does not believe that to our Education system something is lacking, take a try to find a fitting answer. "

One does not advance.-- But I gave it a thought for the weekend.