"To 'debunk' the emotion, on the basis of a commonplace rationalism, is within almost anyone's capacity. In the second place, I think Gaius and Titius may have honestly misunderstood the pressing educational need of the moment. They see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda—they have learned from tradition that youth is sentimental—and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts."
Another quote from C.S. Lewis' essay "Men Without Chests", which is a call to enhance the spiritual susceptibilities as a way to strengthen us to face untruth and treacheries, instead of beating down emotion. The phrase "irrigate deserts" particularly stuck in my mind over the past days, and I wanted to put it down here, just to remember it always.
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