A Wish for the Young

An ally and man-maker in Capetown, South Africa, sent along this wonderful statement titled, We Wish the Young to Outdo Us. It's taken from a book written in 1921 with the title, The Home Kindergarten Manual.

In the language of that period it's speaks an ancient and clear truth about our hopes and dreams for all our children. It is also the wish that is at the heart of the Man-Making book.

We Wish the Young to Outdo Us

What do we wish that they should be?

If forced to reason about it, we say they ought to be what we have found by experience it is prudent and wise to be; and they ought to go one stage beyond the stage we have gone.

But we cannot conduct them beyond the stage we have reached. We can only point and say, “Here are the boundaries which we have reached; beyond is an undiscovered country; go out and discover it. We can furnish you with a few probabilities; we can supply you with a few tendencies; we can say to you that we cannot go with you; we can say to you that that we think wisdom points in this direction; but we cannot guide you; we must part with you at the door; and bid you Godspeed. But we want you to go on; we do not want you to stop where we stopped.”