words at war Marie Marie better put the paper down I can't Charlie the faces of these Detroit raceriders they're like the boys who sit in my English classes not these hoodlums I don't know this boy pulling the Negro from the car why he could be Hayes or or Angelino or or Flarrity could he yes Charlie something's wrong with the way we teach with the way I teach with the paper down Marie you'll be late yes you're right I mustn't be late for school not today why today especially because today we've got to get Hayes before he pulls a Negro from a car in a race riot we've got to get Flarrity before he becomes a tool of the Christian front Charlie they say that the public school system is the best guarantee of democracy but I don't know it isn't fulfilling its mission Charlie it is and I'm frightened words at war the national broadcasting company and its affiliated independent stations in cooperation with the council on books in wartime present a radio adaptation of one of the most thought-provoking books of 1944 your school your children by Marie Serkin were extremely proud to announce that the part of Marie Serkin will be played by the distinguished American actress Miss Florence elder sentence has two parts a subject and a preterite predicate that's what I said Mrs. Serkin preterite predicate Hayes P-R-E-D-I-C-A-T-E okay are there subjects and predicates in Silas minor of course in Shakespeare too I certainly that's what I thought he don't even write English I've taught them for 18 years boys called Tony and Philip and George girls called Martha and Elizabeth and Sarah for 18 years in a New York City high school classroom and together we discussed and reviewed such things as Paradise Lost and Silas minor we've meditated the agreement of subject and verb pondered the use of the subjunctive and argued a little about Shakespeare today however we talked about the recent race riot in Detroit I don't know teacher you can't trust any of them sure first thing you know they pull a knife on you right isn't safe to walk along certain streets in New York get all this they're human just like us they didn't start this thing in Detroit why I read in the papers people say New York isn't America I tell them I teach in a New York high school and I know that New York is America the boys and girls I teach are like the overwhelming majority of the population the 90% that doesn't go to college the skilled mechanics the stenographers the dressmakers I see the changing young faces I read their composition I hear them talk I see the silly scroll on the blackboard before Pearl Harbor I ran my fingers over a jagged swastika cut into a desk and I've got a front seat on a democratic process the high school classroom the only place where the great mass of Americans can hear the voice of democracy speak out with passion and authority and I've seen something happen what was it well listen once I recall we were discussing the story of Joan of Arc that isn't true is it well Hayes Joan did believe she heard miraculous voices that's not what I mean that other stuff you mean about a leading an army yeah well that's a matter of history she was cried and burned at the stake oh yeah that's a fact Hayes don't you believe it no not me you don't have to take my word for it Hayes you can read about her in your European history book no sir but Hayes it's a matter of history it's propaganda that's nonsense Hayes it's in the encyclopedia Britannica I'm gonna write to my opinion haven't I I say it's a lot of applesauce no fraudulent hero worship for the young a symptom the first symptom of the disease believe nothing debunk everything when the 3a kids grin over the story of Washington in the cherry tree bless their little horse sense show the great man in his pot belly expose his blemishes that's the method and if you create a generation of pseudo sophisticates who is bleatingly uncritical and they are unbelief as a previous generation had been in its belief why what's wrong I'll tell you what's wrong we've been throwing out the baby with the mud bath we've been tearing down the halo but also the saint so what I'll tell you what this happened a few years ago in my English class the precise time was November 1938 after the anti-Jewish pogroms in Berlin Hilda was German so I asked her she was 16 and blonde and blue-eyed I asked Hilda did you read the papers Hilda I did would you like to give the class your opinion sure it isn't true things like that have not happened in Germany you did read the papers didn't you sure and you heard it on the radio it's propaganda that's all it is but suppose it isn't propaganda for the sake of discussion suppose these outrages did take place in Berlin then he must have had a reason I see he Hilda if you were in Germany today would you beat and rob a girl you knew simply because she was Jewish would I if I was stronger why not Hilda had been born in the United States her parents were German but she was the product of an American school she wasn't like the Christian fronters and their kind in the school she was bright her IQ was relatively high consciously she was a Nazi and yet she didn't worry me as much as the Irish boys who hated England the Italian boys who felt personally the failure of Italian arms the other decent boys who read the tabloids in the American first columnist the United States is a republic not a democracy what's that Smith what did you say the United States is a republic and not a democracy I was surprised of course I was surprised Joe Smith was not given to find fun verbal distinction he was hardly the type to go in for profound discussion of the nature of the state the source of the new truth as I discovered later was an editorial in social justice he hadn't read it himself but it got around to him the way those things do I told my husband about it well don't you put these kids straight it's not quite so simple Charlie what you mean it's not simple that's no answer I'm a teacher Charlie I'm not supposed to indoctrinate I'm supposed to encourage objective classroom discussion that's bunk but don't you see anything I tell them is propaganda show it to him in the books the books are propaganda too for heaven's sakes what is truth for these kids that's it Charlie anything that comes through legitimate channels isn't true it's bunk truth is in the scurrilous handbills the yellow journals the street corner meeting too many of them Roosevelt or any government spokesman is a liar good Lord what's wrong yes what was wrong what still is wrong we in the schools have ourselves encouraged a disposition to question authority and to be dubious about unchecked statements we did this in order to develop an inquiring mind in the interest of intellectual freedom with intelligence students the results have been to make for a more just evaluation of men and events but with boys like Hayes it means and all this stuff you get from the office of war information it's just a lot of bush why this wouldn't be quite so bad if at the same time Hayes didn't proceed to pin his faith in William Dudley Pele yet it's natural for my pupils to label as bunk a report of Nazi massacres in Poland normal young people can't credit the reality of such events however when the same young people find it easier to credit the enemy version of an incident rather than the explanation given by our own government something has gone wrong isn't it true that Japan had to attack us and self-defense you really believe that Hayes a lot of fellas believe that a lot of fellas in Germany perhaps no no we're not going to be sucked in by a lot of propaganda are we guys how do we even know there wasn't attack on Pearl Harbor yes that's right how do we know well don't you believe the president of the United States don't make me laugh don't you believe Congress no man well you you listen to the radio don't you believe H.B. Carlton born a Lowell Thomas that's nothing but propaganda just to get us into the war that's right they should all listen to those pills they don't know the rear from a hole in a ground fortunately this combination of cynicism and stupidity is not common but it does exist it exists in our public schools it isn't a teacher's function to determine how a school should stand in regard to particular controversies but some issues shouldn't be controversial they shouldn't be even issues things like democracy and the right to live after all a school doesn't flourish in a vacuum it reflects social forces politics life around us how can the school become one of those active forces I think that's our chief question well let's look at it this was a special day the board of Education had given instructions to observe George Washington Carver day and for once everything went fine and and he discovered how to make ice cream out of peanuts and paints and candy out of peanuts and and things like that yeah what did you find out about Carver well he could have made a lot of money working for private companies but he said it was more important that he should teach his people how to grow things why was that do you think because in the south the Negroes are poor George Washington Carver didn't want to help himself he wanted to show the colored people how they could plant stuff like soybeans and live off of it off it Helen not off of it oh yes ma'am you know I think it's wrong about this here Jim Crow stuff look at Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson he was an all-american sure and he's got a son who's better than he was what a half back you're not season and not a half back and well it doesn't matter boys what matters is that discrimination is wrong isn't it stinks Billy it ain't right ma'am ain't isn't right thank you Billy it was all very pleasant and I felt that the Gettysburg address had left its mark but the feeling wasn't to last very long there are a number of colored pupils in the schools ordinarily they live at peace with the other boys but occasionally there's a fracas this time there was a fight in the lunchroom and an ugly brawl developed two class periods after the fight when the school was seething with rumors I asked my senior English class to write a piece suitable for the school paper perhaps something designed to improve white Negro relations in the school and I assured them that their sentiments would not be held against them that can the startled me I think the only way to put a stop to this is to separate the white boys and the colored boys I don't mean throw one race out of school but I think they should put one race in the annex the only way to stop this is for whites and Negroes to have their own schools libraries and come here I suggest we send them back to be slaves or isolate them someplace in a far off island they don't appreciate their first of all this could be a fight because of discrimination of a race everyone should be given a fair break in the school regardless of race creed or color this is one principle United States is fighting for we in the school should fight together to try to yes that can the startles me the majority of the students favored segregation the fine talk about George Washington Carver apparently had not registered it was not a particular Negro boy against a particular white boy or vice versa it was the fight against the black regardless of the right or wrong of the issue some of the teachers gathered to talk it over I say that we ought to hold a school assembly right thrash the business out while the subject hard no that's wrong it's wrong the debate would be too emotional of course it'll be emotional what do you want to serve it up as cold potatoes sir this is the time to call the assembly yes I agree no no look all it'll do is stir up trouble my motto is let sleeping dogs large well I don't know this was the ultimate policy to let sleeping dogs lie the immediate difficulty was glossed over and nothing was done to prevent the repetition of a dangerous incident this was bad enough in my school but the situation is worse on the outside in Negro sections where overcrowding unequal opportunity lack of recreational facilities give the Negro a sense of utility and outrage whoever makes the Negro feel that he belongs will win him the communists have long been preaching their revolutionary dogman Harlem their appeal is explicit and understandable but it's not only the Negro problem there's also another sore it exists among the students and among members of the teaching profession haven't you noticed something the Jewish teachers get all the fat plums that's certainly all the soft jobs why I could tell you plenty about how the principle works now one day last month and it's just a plain case of anti-semitism every Jewish teacher gets sent to the annex the Catholics get all the cozy jobs oh you don't say I could tell you plenty if I had a mind I've known this principle for a long time he's a kind of a man there's no exaggeration in this this awareness of racial and religious origins has become indecently acute it leads to a kind of bookkeeping which has nothing to do with pedagogy or the welfare of the school an unofficial quota system according to which jobs and favors are doled out Jewish students have become increasingly sensitive this incident not long ago is typical and then he cracked that anti-semitic joke I tell you that teachers anti-semitic oh you're wrong I'm not wrong it was just a wise crack there's nothing malicious in it I know better I tell you he's a Christian oh you mustn't believe that perhaps the remark was a little tactless but I know that teacher you're just too suspicious while you're developing your persecution there was a case in one school where a Gentile girl complained that a teacher was making anti-semitic remarks many Jewish students had previously made similar charges nothing was done but now a Gentile girl was making them and this time the principal investigated you say that's what he said yes sir not once but many times what have you to say sir she's making it up out of whole cloth oh that's not so you did say please now I don't want this to go any further let's have no public repercussions I want peace and harmony in this school but I tell you one moment young lady the charges have been categorically denied and I accept that denial is that understood yes sir very well you may go what we need in this school is a brotherhood yes that's right what I want in my school kindness and brotherhood well that's what we all want by the Lord we're going to have it now listen here there are three prizes to give out yes give one to a Protestant one to a Catholic and one to a Jew everybody gets his share oh I understand and I'd like to see the colored boys get prizes let's let's make them happy I can't get brotherhood idealistically by heaven I'm going to get it mathematically the principal had hit on an inspired formula practical pedagogy with no frills the incident was closed though it was not clear whether justice or expediency had prevailed but there were other incidents all over the city simultaneously this is what happened yes the verses were amusing and skillful so skillful it was obvious no high school student could have written there is danger in publicizing a slander no matter how brilliantly the falsity of a charge is exposed the aroma of accusation continues to cling but there is also a danger in not publicizing a slander a danger in silence in some schools the principles met with the teachers for discussion you know I don't blame some of our teachers for being upset well neither do I I tell you all of our Jewish teachers in fact all the Jewish people have an awful problem facing them yes a matter of fact in America today there's no problem half as acute as a Jewish problem don't you think so mr. principal I don't think this is a Jewish problem at all this is an American problem well sir may I um well may I ask sir why haven't we attempted to solve it if it's an American problem why haven't we in America schools done something to solve it in the schools what can the schools do this is a problem for the public official for the home but sir the duty of the one moment your attention everyone let's get something straight I run my school the way I know best I've done everything I can it's a good school and I'm not going to have it talked about before the board of education perhaps this isn't even a proper matter for discussion here we're in the business of teaching not indoctrination I think that's all meeting is dismissed but isn't it something the meeting is dismissed I refuse to be dismissed I beg your pardon I refuse to be dismissed sir this isn't something you can dismiss we're teachers we're not teachers for the money in it we're making less than a fourth-class welder in a shipyard I'm not griping I've been at it for 10 years yes 10 years I used to think there was something holy about it teacher something pretty noble standing up before a group of youngsters telling them about good things true things fine things how to grow up decent and straight after 10 years I should know better shouldn't I I shouldn't be no so naive should I this is a school not a church it's both it's everything when they're little we see that they're inoculated against Deferia and vaccinated against smallpox is that always supposed to do keep them from physical high repeat the meeting is nobody you've got to let me finish look after Pearl Harbor we taught them first aid didn't we we taught them how to detect poison gas we didn't ask their opinion we told them now we've got to tell them about the poison of race and religious hatred what's the earthly good of winning battles overseas and losing them here at home what good is it the meeting is dismissed the meeting was dismissed many meetings were dismissed and what emerged once again the school showing themselves unable incapable of meeting a challenge to democracy oh there was surveys there were investigations notices were tacked up on the bulletin boards there was even a little activity an occasional school assembly devoted to tolerance an occasional parent-teacher meeting to promote brotherhood but always voices saying no indoctrination let the children decide for themselves democracy has been around since 1776 the teachers business is to teach not preach all over again it's not cricket for the teacher to impose her views no indoctrination indoctrination is a dirty word but our enemies are not at all sensitive about dirty words they don't exhibit any scruples about trying to capture the minds of the young you can't laugh it away you can't laugh away the fact that they have no doubt about the teachability of intolerance many teachers stopped laughing they called more meeting well what do you want us to do you can't grab them and stuff tolerance down her throat no maybe we're supposed to feed the kids love your neighbor kill her three times a day and all wise cracks don't help suppose we try teaching democracy there it goes again the old bromide remember we're teachers we can't afford to be dogmatic we mustn't indoctrinate oh for heaven's sake why mustn't we is it wrong to take a stand about democratic ideals what makes you think that the results of appeasement will be any better at center high than the word Munich what makes you think you just have to fold your hands while your students praise William deadly pelle and the Christian front maybe you want to shut them up I want to answer them they've got a right to their opinion have they well have they suppose Jimmy gives you his mature opinion that two and two makes five that's his opinion isn't it but you're not going to let him get away with it are you know you're going to tell him where he's wrong listen young people need direction they don't go in for subtlety you don't teach them with mirrors well maybe you're right but what do we do about it that's the trouble I don't know there ought to be a plan there ought to be well there is a plan in Springfield Massachusetts in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania there is a plan it's called the Springfield plan a plan against bias a plan against prejudice a plan for dramatic democratic education and it works to provide opportunities for democratic self-government to study the weakness and the strength of our democracy to establish a positive working philosophy based on democratic principles to evaluate one's own prejudices and bias to study public opinion in a democracy and to understand how it is influenced to teach students how to weigh evidence how to reach conclusions objectively and how to distinguish between fact and opinion and we don't depend on the zeal of a few crusading spirits it's in the school's daily program plan right beside arithmetic following languages in general science every hour every day every week every semester it's not hot air the Springfield plan works yes it works in Springfield and Pittsburgh and wherever the plan is in operation democracy is not a fourth of July phrase but an integral part of the curriculum it's not a notice on the bulletin board it's not a speech before the parent teaches association in Springfield they are no longer afraid to attack a pernicious influence whether it comes from the home or the street or the playground the Springfield plan works it works in Springfield it works in Pittsburgh it can work in any enlightened community where men and women are willing to roll up their sleeves and say let's cut out the pussyfooting let's start being realistic in teaching our youngsters the meaning and worth of the only political ideal that really works for the people honest fearless small D democracy in a few weeks our schools will hold their graduation ceremony the boys will put away their sweaters and their lumberjacket and wear neatly pressed suits and the girls will look pretty in their party dresses and their bright facades the color guard will march in with a flag and the graduates will stand and make the pledge to justice and liberty for all and after the speeches and the diplomas Thompson will go into the Coast Guard Riley will join the Marines the Marco and Feigenbaum will be accepted as aviation cadets and they'll come back on their first furloughs proud in their uniforms and in this time of life and death for the individual this time of life and death for a great nation and a great vision these boys will be more precious to us and we'll remember once again that democracy is the respect for the worth of every individual and we'll remember once again that the American school must become the school of an American faith yes that's the task that's the challenge how are we going to meet it thank you miss eldridge for a most eloquent performance tonight on words at war the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the council on books and wartime has presented a dramatization based on Marie Sirkin's book your school your children starring the distinguished American actress miss Florence Eldridge the script was by Morton Wishin grad music by William meter production garnet garrison jack Costello speaking this is the national broadcasting company


Chapter 19 of The Lost Art of Reading by Gerald Stanley Leigh This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Book 4 What to Do Next I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives! 1. See Next Chapter It is good to rise early in the morning when the world is still respectable and nobody has used it yet, and sit and look at it, try to realize it. One sees things very differently. It is a kind of yawn of all being. One feels one's soul lying out, all relaxed on it and resting on real things. It stretches itself on the bare bones of the earth and nose.  And as I lay in the morning, soul and body reaching out to the real things and resting on them, I thought I heard one part of me, down underneath, half in the light and half in the dark, laughing softly at the other. What is this book of yours, it said coldly, with its proffered scheme of education, its millenniums, and things? What do you think this theory, this heaven-spanning theory of reading of yours, really is? Which you have held up objectively, almost authoritatively, to be looked at as truth. Do you think it is anything after all but a kind of pallid, unreal water-color exhibition, a row of blurs of faintly colored portraits of yourself, spread on space? Do you not see how unfair it is, this spinning out of one's own little dark, tired inside, a theory for a wide heaven and earth, this straddling with one temperament, a star? Then I made myself sit down and compose what I feared would be a strictly honest title page for this book. Instead of the lost art of reading, a study of education by, etc., I wrote it, how to be more like me? A shy at education by, etc. And when I looked boldly, almost scientifically, at this title page, let it mock me a little, had laughed and sighed over it as I ought, there came a great hush from I know not where. I remembered it was the title, after all, for better or worse, in some sort or another of every book I had craved and delighted in, in the whole world. Then suddenly I found myself before this book praying to it, and before every struggling, desiring book of every man of other men, where it has prayed before and I dared to look my title in the face. I have not denied, I do not need to deny, that what I have uncovered here is merely my own soul's glimmer, my interpretation, at this mighty passing show of a world, when it comes to you, O gentle reader, not as I am, but as I would like to be. Out of chaos it struggles to you, and defeat, can you not see it? And if but the benediction of what I, or you, or any man would like to be, will come and rest on it, it is enough. Take it first and last, it is written in every man's soul, be his theory whatsoever, that may, of this great wondering world, wave after wave of it, shuddering and glorying over him, it is in this world, until he possesses it, or misses possessing it himself, feels it slipping from him, it is in what a man is, has, or might have, that he must track out his promise for a world. His life is his prayer for the ages, as long as he lives, and what he is, and what he is trying to be, sings and prays for him, says masses for his soul under the stars, and in the presence of all peoples, when he is dead. By this truth I, in my book with you, gentle reader, must stand or fall. Even now as I bend over the click of my typewriter, the years rise dim and flow over me out of the east, generations of brothers, out of the mist of heaven and out of the dust of the earth, trooping across the world and wondering at it, come and go and out of all these there shall not be one, no not one, gentle reader, but shall be touched and loved by you, by me. In light out of shadow or in the shadow out of the light our souls fleck them, fleck them with the invisible, blessing them and cursing them. We shall be the voices of the night and day to them, shall live a shadow of life with them and be the sounds in their ears. Did any man think that what we are and what we are trying to be is ours, is private, is for ourselves, boundlessly, helplessly, scattered on the world, upon the faces of our fellows, our souls mock to us or sing to us, forever? So if I have opened my windows to you, say not it is because I have dared, it is because I have not dared, I have said I will protect my soul with the street, I will have my vow written on my forehead, I will throw open my window to the passer-by, fling it in, I beg you, O world, whatever it is, be it prayer or hope or jest, it is mine, I have vowed to live with it, to live out of it, so long as I feel your footsteps under my casement and know that your watch is upon my days and that you hold me to myself, I have taken for my challenge or for my comrade, I know not which, a whole world, and what shall a man give in exchange for a whole world, and my soul said, he shall not save nor keep back himself.  Then God locks him out, to hide a secret, have enough of it, hide it outdoors, why should a man take anything less than a world to hide in, if a soul is really a soul, why should it not fall back for its reserve on its own infinity? God does, even daisies do, it is too big a world to be always bothering about one's secret in it. Who has time for it? I have said, give it out, move right on living, get another. The only way for a man in this twentieth century to hide his soul is by letting it reach out of sight. Not by locks, nor by stiflings, nor by mean little economisings of the heart, does a man earn a world for a comrade. Let the laughers laugh on the great still street in space where souls who cares to diagnosis compelled as I am as most of us are to witness the unhappy spectacle in every city of the land of a great mass of unfortunate and mutilated persons world round and round in rows and huge reading machines being crunched and educated. It is very hard not to rush thoughtlessly into the rescue sometimes, even if one has nothing better than such a pitiful, helpless thing as good advice. I am afraid it does not look very wise to do it. Civilization is such a vast hypnotizing, polarizing spectacle. As the stage so fully to itself, everybody's eyes glued on it, it is hard to get up and say what one thinks in it. One cannot find anything equally objective to say it with. One feels as if calling attention to one's self to the little private shabby theater of one's own mind. It is as if in a great theater, on a back seat in it, one were to get up and stand in his chair and get the audience to turn round and say, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the stage with the footlights over there. This is the stage here where I am. Now watch me twirl my thumbs. But the great spectacle of the universal reading machine is too much for me. Before I know it, I try to get the audience to turn around. The spectacle of even a single lad in his more impressionable and possible years reading a book whether he has anything to do with it or not, in spite of the author and in spite of himself, when one considers how many books he might read which really belong to him, is enough to make a mere reformer or outlaw or parent interferer of any man who is compelled to witness it. But it seems that the only way to interfere with one of these great reading machines is to stop the machine. One would say theoretically that it would not take very much to stop it. A mere broken thread of thought would do it if the machine had any provision for thoughts. As it is, one can only stand outside, watch it through the window and do what all outsiders are obliged to do. Shout into the den a little good advice. If this good advice were to be summed up in a principle or prepared for a textbook, it would be something like this. The whole theory of our prevailing education is a kind of unanimous colossal I can't, you can't chorus. We all of us together can't. The working principle of public school education all the way from its biggest superintendents or overseers down to its littlest toe heads in the primary rooms is a huge overbearing, overwhelming system of not expecting anything of anybody. Everything is arranged throughout with reference to not expecting and the more perfectly a system works without expecting or needing to expect, the more successful it is represented to be. The public does not expect anything of the politicians. The politicians do not expect anything of the superintendents. The superintendents do not expect anything of the teachers and the teachers do not expect anything of the pupils and the pupils do not expect anything of themselves. That is to say, the whole educational world is upside down. So perfectly and regularly and faultlessly upside down that it is almost hopeful. All one needs to do is to turn it accurately and carefully over at every point and it will work wonderfully. To turn it upside down, have teachers that believe something. Three, eclipse. When it was decreed in the course of the nineteenth century that the educational world should pass over from the emphasis of persons to the emphasis of things, it was decreed that a generation that could not emphasize persons in its knowledge could not know persons. A generation which knows things and does not know persons naturally believes in things more than it believes in persons. Even as an educator who is as forward looking and open to human nature as President Charles F. Thwing, with all his emphasis of knowing persons and believing in persons as basis for educational work seems to some of us to give an essentially unbelieving and pessimistic classification of human nature for the use of teachers. Early education, says President Thwing, occupies itself with description. Geometry, space, arithmetic, time, science, the world of nature. Later education with comparison and relations. If one asks, why not both together? Why learn facts at one time and their relations at another? Is it not the most vital possible way to learn facts to learn them in their relations? The answer that would be generally made reveals that most teachers are pessimists. That they have very small faith in what can be expected of the youngest pupils. The theory is that interpretative minds must not be expected of them. Some of us find it very hard to believe as little as this in any child. Most children have such an incorrigible tendency for putting things together that they even put them together wrong rather than not put them together at all. Under existing educational conditions, a child is more of a philosopher at six than he is at twenty-six. The third stage of education for which Dr. Thwing partitions off the human mind is the stage in which a pupil becomes capable of original research, a discoverer of facts and relations himself. In theory this means that when a man is thirty years old and all possible habits of originality have been trained out of him, he should be allowed to be original. In practice it means removing a man's brain for thirty years and then telling him he can think. There never has been a live boy in a school as yet that would allow himself to be educated in this way if he could help it. All the daily habits of his mind resent it. It is a pessimistic postponing way of educating him. It does not believe in him enough. It may be true of men in the bulk, men by the five thousand, that their intellectual processes happen along in this conveniently scientific fashion, at least as regards emphasis, but when it is applied to any individual mind at any particular time in actual education it is found that it is not true, that it is pessimistic. God is not so monotonous and the universe is not graded as accurately as a public school. And things are much more delightfully mixed up. If a great university were to give itself wholeheartedly and pointedly to one single individual student it would find it both convenient and pleasant and natural and necessary to let him follow these three stages all at once. In one stage with one set of things and in another stage with another. Everyone admits that the first thing a genius does with such a convenient three-part system or chart for a soul is to knock it end-wise. He does it because he can. Others would, if they could He insists from his earliest days on doing all three parts, everything one set of things after the other description, comparison, creation and original research sometimes all at once. He learns even words all ways at once. All of these processes are applied to each thing and a genius learns in his life not the three parts of his life. One might as well say to a child, now dear little lad, your life is going to be made up of eating, sleeping and living. You must get your eating all done up now, these first ten years, and then you can get your sleeping done up and then you can take a spell at living or putting things together. The first axiom of true pedagogics is that nothing can be taught except the outside or letter of a thing. The second axiom is that there is nothing gained in teaching a pupil the outside of a thing if he has not the inside, the spirit or relations of it. Teachers do not dare to believe this. They think it is true only of men of genius. They admit that men of genius can be educated through the inside or by calling out the spirit, by drawing out their powers of originality from the first, but they argue that with common pupils this process should not be allowed. They are not worthy of it. That is to say the more ordinary men are, and the more they need brains, the less they shall be allowed to have them. In as much then as the inside cannot be taught and there is no object in teaching the outside, the question remains how to get the right inside at work producing the right outside. This is a purely spiritual question and brings us to the third axiom. Every human being born into the world is entitled to a special study and a special answer all the way to himself. If, as President Thwing very truly says, the higher education as well as the law is to be organized by the unit of the individual student, what follows? The organization must be such as to make it possible for every teacher to study and serve each individual student as a special being by himself. In other words if this last statement of Dr. Thwing's is to be acted upon, it makes havoc with his first. It requires a somewhat new and practically revolutionary organization in education. It will be an organization which takes for its basic principle something like this. This the very essence of an average pupil is that he needs to be studied more, not less, than anyone else in order to find his master key, the master passion to open his soul The essence of a genius is that almost anyone of a dozen passions can be made the motive power of his learning. His soul is opening somewhere all the time. The less individuality a student has, the more he is like other students. The more he should be kept away from other students until what little individuality he has has been brought out. It is not only equally true of the ordinary man as well as of the man of genius that he must educate himself, but it is more true. Other people's knowledge can be poured into and poured over a genius innocently enough. It rolls off him like water on a duck's back. Even if it gets in he organically protects himself. The genius of the ordinary man needs special protection made for it. As our educational institutions are arranged at present, the more commonplace our students are, the more we herd them together to make them more commonplace. That is, we do not believe in them enough. We believe that they are commonplace through and through and that nothing can be done about it. We admit after a little intellectual struggle that a genius who is bound to be an individual anyway should be treated as one, but a common boy whose individuality can only be brought out by his being very vigorously and constantly reminded of it and exercised in it is dropped altogether as an individual, is put into a herd of other common boys, and his last remaining chance of being anybody is irrevocably cut off. We do not believe in him as an individual. He is a fraction of a room full. He is a sixty seventh or a seven hundred and thirty fourth of something. Someone has said that the problem of education is getting to be how can we give in our huge learning machines our exceptional students more of a chance? I state a greater problem. How can we give our common students a chance to be exceptional ones? The problem can only be solved by teachers who believe something, who believe that there is some common ground, some spiritual law of junction between the man of genius, the natural or free man, and the cramped, i.e. artificial ordinary one. It would be hard to name any more important proposition for current education to act on than this, that the natural man in this world is the man of genius. The church has had to learn that religion does not consist in being unnatural. The schools are next to learn that the man of genius is not unnatural. He is what nature intended every man to be at the point where his genius lies. The way out in education, the only believing, Viral, man's way out would seem to begin with the man of genius as a principle and work out the application of the principle to more ordinary men, men of slowed down genius. We are going to use the same methods, faster or slower, for both. A child's greater genius lies in his having a more lively sense of relation with more things than other children. Teachers are going to believe that if the right thing can be done about it, this sense of a live relation to knowledge can be uncovered in every human soul. That there is a certain sense in which every man is his own genius. By education, said Helvesias, you can make bears dance but never create a man of genius. The first thing for a teacher who believes this to do is not to teach. For apocalypse there is a spirit in this book struggling down underneath it which neither I nor any other man shall ever express. It needs a nation to express it, a nation fearless to know itself, a great, joyous, trustful, expectant nation. The centuries break away. I almost see it now lifting itself in its plains and hills and fields and cities, in its smoke and cloudland, as on some huge altar to supreme destiny, a nation freed before heaven by the mighty daily childlike joy of its own life. I see it as a nation full of personalities, full of self-contained normally self-centered, self-delighted, self-poised men, men of genius, men who balance off with a world, men who are capable of being at will, magnificently self-conscious or unconscious, self-possessed or self-forgetful, balanced men, comrades and equals of a world neither at slaves nor at masters. I have said I will not have a faith that I have to get to with a trap door. I have said that inspiration is for everybody. I have had inspiration myself and I will not clang down a door above my soul and believe that God has given to me or to anyone else what only a few can have. I do not want anything. I will not have anything that anyone cannot have. If there is one thing rather than another that inspiration is for, it is that when I have it I know that any man can have it. It is necessary to my selfishness that he shall have it. If a great wonder of a world like this is given to a man and he is told to live on it and it is not furnished with men to live with, with men that go with it, what is it all for? If one could have one's choice in being damned, there would be no way that would be quite so quick and effective as having inspirations that were so little inspired as to make one suppose they were merely for oneself or for a few others. The only way to save one's soul or to keep a corner of God in it is to believe that he is a kind of God who has put inspiration in every man. All that has to be done with it is to get him to stop smothering it. Inspiration, instead of being an act of going to work in a minute, living a few hundred years at once an act of making up and creating a new and wonderful soul for oneself, consists in the act of lifting off the lid from the one one has. The mere fact that the man exists who has had both experiences not having inspiration and having it gives a basis for a knowledge of what inspiration is. A man who has never had anything except inspiration cannot tell us what it is, and a man who has never had it cannot tell us what it is. But a man who has had both of these experiences, which is the case with most of us, constitutes a cross-section of the subject, a symbol of hope for everyone. All who have had not inspirations and inspirations both know that the origin and control and habit of inspiration are all of such a character as to suggest that it is the common property of all men. All that is necessary is to have true educators or promoters, men who furnish the conditions in which the common property can be got at. The only difference between men of genius, men of genius who know it, and other men, men of genius who don't know it, is that the men of genius who know it have discovered themselves, have such a headlong habit of self-joy in them, have tasted their self-joy so deeply that they are bound to get at them whether the conditions are favorable or not. The great fact about the ordinary man's genius, which the educational world has next to reckon with, is that there are not so many ways to uncover it. The ordinary man at first or until he gets the appetite started is more particular about the conditions. It is because a man of genius is more thorough with the genius he has, more spiritual and willful with it than other men that he grows great. A man's genius is always at bottom religious at the point where it is genius. A worshiping toward something, a worshiping toward something until he gets it. A supreme covetousness for God, for being a God. It is a faith in him, a sense of identity and sharing with what seems to be above and outside, a sense of his own latent infinity. I have said that all that real teaching is for is to say to a man in countless ways, a countless you can. And I have said that all real learning is for is to say I can. When we have enough great I cans, there will be a great society or nation, a glorious we can, rising to heaven. This is the ideal that hovers over all real teaching and makes it deathless, fertile forever. If the world could be stopped short for ten years in its dull, sullen round of not believing in itself, if it could be allowed to have all of it all over even for three days, the great solemn joy of letting itself go, it would not be caught falling back very soon, I think into its stupor of cowardice. It would not be the same world for three hundred years. All that it is going to require to get all people to feel that they are inspired is someone who is strong enough to lift a few people off of themselves. Get the idea started. Every man is so busy nowadays keeping himself, as he thinks, properly smothered that he has not the slightest idea of what is really inside him or of what the thing that is really inside him would do with him if he would give it a chance. Any man who has had the experience of not having inspiration and the experience of having it both knows that it is the sense of striking down through of having the lid of one's smaller consciousness lifted off in the long run his inspiration can be had or not as he wills. He knows that it is the supreme reasonableness in him, the primeval underlying naturalness in him rising to its rights. What he feels when he is inspired is that the larger laws, the laws above the other laws, have taken hold of him. He knows that the one law of inspiration is that a man shall have the freedom of himself. Most problems and worries are based on defective, uninvoked functions. Some organ, vision, taste, or feeling or instinct is not allowed its vent. It's chance to qualify. Something needs lifting away. The common experience of sleeping things off or walking or working them off is the daily symbol of inspiration. More often than not a worry or trouble is moved entirely out of one's path by the simplest possible device, an intelligent or instinctive change of conditions. The fundamental heresy of modern education is that it does not believe this does not believe in making deliberate arrangements for the originality of the average man. It does not see that the extraordinary man is simply the ordinary man keyed up writ large or moving more rapidly. What the average man is now the great men were once. When we begin to understand that a man of genius is not supernatural that he is simply more natural than the rest of us that all the things that are true for him are true for us except that they are true more slowly. The educational world will be a new world. The very essence of the creative power of a man of genius over other men is that he believes in them more than they do. He writes, paints, or sings as if all other men were men of genius and he keeps on doing it until they are. All modern human nature is a next genius. The whole world is a great gallery of things that men of genius have seen until they make other men see them too and prove that other men can see them. What one man sees with travail or by being born again whole generations see at last without trying. And when they are born the first time. The great cosmic process is going on in the human spirit. Ages flow down from the stars upon it.  But it is to be noticed that when the world gets its greatest man, the one who guesses most, generations are born and die to know him. All with awe and gentleness in their hearts. One after the other as they wheel up to the great sun to live.  The main difference between a great man and a little one is a matter of time. If the little man could keep his organs going, could keep on experiencing acting and reacting on things for four thousand years, he would have no difficulty in being as great as some men are in their three score and ten. All genius is inherited time and space. The imagination which is the psychological substitute for time and space is a fundamental element in all great power because being able to reach results without pacing off the processes, it makes it possible for a man to crowd more experience in and be great in a shorter time. The idea of educating the little man in the same way as the great man from the inside or by drawing out his originality meets with many objections. It is objected that in as much as no little men could be made into great men, in the time allotted, there would be no object in trying to do it and no result to show for it in the world except row after row of spoiled little men drearily waiting to die. The answer to this is the simple assertion that if a quart cup is full, it is the utmost a quart cup can expect. A hog's head can do no more. So far as the man himself is concerned, if he has five sound real senses in him, all of them acting and reacting on real things, if he is alive, in other words, sincere through and through, he is educated. The true education must always consist not in how much a man has, but in the way he feels about what he has. The kingdom of heaven is on the inside of his five senses. Five. Every man his own genius. I do not mean by the man of genius in this connection the great man of genius who takes hold of his ancestors to live, rakes centuries into his life, burns up the phosphorus of ten generations and fifty years and with giant masterpieces takes leave of the world at last bringing his family to a full stop in a blaze of glory and a spindling child or so. I am merely contending for the principle that the extraordinary or inspired man is the normal man at the point where he is inspired and that the ordinary or uninspired boy can be made like him, must be educated like him, led out through his self-delight to truth. That, if anything, the ordinary or uninspired boy needs to be educated like a genius more than a genius does. I know of a country house which reminds me of the kind of mind I would like to have. In the first place it is a house that grew. It could not possibly have been thought of all at once. In the second place it grew itself, half inspiration and half common sense, with its mistakes and its delights all in it. Gloriously, frankly, it blundered into being seven generations tumbled on its floors, filled it with laughter and love and tears. One felt that every life that had come to it had written itself on its walls, that the old house had broken out in a new place for it, full of new little joys everywhere and jogs and bays and afterthoughts and forethoughts, old roofs and young ones, chumming together and old chimneys, three to start with and four new ones that came when they got ready. Everything about it touched the heart and said something. I have never managed to see it yet, whether in sunlight, cloudlight or starlight, or the light of its own lamps, but that it stood and spoke. It is a house that has genius. The genius of the earth and the sky around it are all in it, of motherhood of old age and of little children. It grew out of a spirit, a loving, eager, putting together, a making of relations between things that were a part, the portrait of a family. It is a very beautiful, eloquent house, and hundreds of nights on the white road have I passed it by in my lonely walk and stopped and listened to it, standing there in the lights, like a kind of low singing in the trees, and when I have come home later on the white road and the lights were all put out, I still feel it speaking there, faint against heaven, with all its sleep, its young and old sleep, its memories and hopes of birth and death, lifting itself in the night, a prayer of generations. Many people do not care for it very much. They would wonder that I should like a mind like it. It is a wandering, around kind of a house has thirty outside doors. If one like it it is easy to get out, which is just what I like in a mind, stairways almost anywhere, only one or two places in the whole building where there is not a piazza, and every inch of piazza has steps down to the grass and there are no walks, a great central fireplace big as a room, little groups of rooms that keep coming on one like surprises and little groups of houses around outside that have sprung up out of the ground themselves, a flower garden that thought of itself and looks as if it took care of itself, but doesn't, everything exuberant and hospitable and free on every side and full of play, a high stillness and seriousness overall. I cannot quite say what it is but most country houses look to me as if they had forgotten they were really outdoors in a great wide free happy place where winds and suns run things, where not even God says nay and everything lives by its inner law in the presence of the others exalts in its own joy and plays with God. Most country homes forget this.  People's minds and the houses are like the houses. They reek with sobriety. That is, they are all abnormal, foreign to the spirit, to the passion of self-delight, of life, of genius. Most of them are fairly hostile to genius or look at it with a launette. I like to think that if the principles and habits of freedom that result in genius were to be gauged and adjusted toward bringing out the genius in ordinary men, they would result in the following. Recipe to make a great man or a live small one. Let him be made like a great work of art. In general, follow the rule in Genesis one. One, chaos. Two, enough chaos. That is enough kinds of chaos, pouring all the several parts of chaos upon the other parts of chaos. Three, watch to see what emerges and what it is in the chaos that most belongs to all the rest. What is the unifying principle? Four, fertilize the chaos. Let it be impregnated with desire, will, purpose, personality. Five, when the unifying principle is discovered, refrain from trying to force everything to attach itself to it. Let things attach themselves in their way, as they are sure to do and do time, and grow upon it. Let the mind be trusted, let it not be always ordered around, thrust into or meddled with. The making of a man, like the making of a work of art, consists in giving the nature of things a chance, keeping them open to the sun and air and the springs of thought. The first person who ever said to man, you press the button and I will do the rest, was God. The emphasis of art in our modern education, of the knack or science or how of things, is to be followed next by the emphasis of the art that conceals art, genius, the norm, and climax of human ability. Any finishing school girl can out sonnet, Keats. The study of appearances, the passion for the outside has run its course. The next thing in education is going to be honesty, fearless naturalness, upheaval, the freedom of self, self-expectancy, all-expectancy, and the passion for possessing real things. The personalities, persons with genius, persons with free-working, uncrammed minds are all there, ready and waiting, both in teachers and pupils, all growing sub-rosa. And the main thing that is left to do is to lift the great roof of machinery off and let them come up. The days are already upon us when education shall be taken out of the hands of the anemic, abstracted men, men who go into everything theory-end first. There is already a new atmosphere in the educated world. The thing that shall be taught shall be the love of swinging out, of swinging up to the light and the air.  Let him swear by his instincts more and live with his medulla oblongata. Six. An inclined plane. This is the very pleasant and profitable ideal you have printed in this book. But teachers and pupils and institutions being what they are, it is not practical and nothing can be done about it. It is objected, respectfully submitted. One. There is nothing so practical as an ideal. For if through his personality and imagination a man can be made to see an ideal, the ideal does itself. That is, it takes hold of him and inspires him to do it and to find means for doing it. This is what has been aimed at in this book. Two. The first and most practical thing to do with an ideal is to believe it. Three. The next most practical thing is to act as if one believed it. This makes other people believe it. To act as if one believed an ideal is to be literal with it, to assume that it can be made real, that something, some next thing can be done with it. Four. It is only people who believe an ideal who can make it practical. Educators who think that an ideal is true and who do not think it is practical do not think it is true, do not really know it. The process of knowing an ideal of realizing it with the mind is the process of knowing that it can be made real. This is what makes it an ideal, that it is capable of becoming real. And if a man does not realize an ideal, cannot make it real in his mind, it is not accurate for him to say that it is not practical. It is accurate for him to say that it is not practical to him. The ideal presented in this book is not presented as practical except to teachers who believe it. Five. Every man who has been given in this world, if he is allowed to get at them, two powers to make a man out of. These powers are vision and action. One, seeing, and two, being or doing what one sees. What a man sees with is quite generally called his imagination. What he does with what he sees is called his character or personality. If it is true, as has been maintained in the whole trend of this book, that the most important means of education are imagination and personality, the power of seeing things and the power of living, as if one saw them, imagination and personality must be accepted as the forces to teach with, and the things that must be taught. The persons who have imagination and personality in modern life must do the teaching. Six. Parents and others who believe in imagination and personality as the supreme energies of human knowledge and the means of education and who have children they wish taught in this way are going to make connections with such teachers and call on them to do it. Seven. In as much as the best way to make an ideal that rests on persons practical is to find the persons, the next thing for persons who believe in an ideal to do is to find each other out. All persons, particularly teachers and parents in their various communities and in the nation who believe that an ideal is practical in education should be social with their ideal. Group themselves together, make themselves known and felt. Eight. Some of us are going to act through the schools we have. We are going to make room in our present overmanaged, morbidly organized institutions with ordered around teachers, for teachers who cannot be ordered around, who are accustomed to use their imaginations and personalities to teach with instead of superintendents. We are going to have superintendents who will desire such teachers. The reason that our over-organized and over-superintendant schools and colleges cannot get the teachers they want to carry out their ideals is a natural one enough. The moment ideal teachers are secured it is found that they have ideals of their own and that they will not teach without them. When vital and free teachers are attracted to the schools and allowed fair conditions there they will soon crowd others out. The moment we arrange to give good teachers a chance good teachers will be had. Nine. Others will find it best to act in another way. Instead of reforming schools from the inside they are going to attack the problem from the outside, start new schools which shall stand for live principles and outlive the others. As good teachers can arrange better conditions for themselves to teach in their own schools wherever practicable this would seem to be the better way. They are going to organize colleges of their own. They are going to organize unorganized colleges for such they would be called at first assemblings of inspired teachers, men grouping men about them each after his kind. Everyone can begin somewhere. Teachers who are outside can begin outside and teachers who are within can begin within. Certainly if every teacher who believes something will believe deeply will free himself let himself out with his belief act on it the day is not long hence when the great host of ordered around teachers with their ordered around pupils will be a memory. Copying and appearing to know will cease. Self-delight and genius will again be the habit of the minds of men in the days of our present poor pale fuddling unbelieving Simon says thumbs up education will be numbered. Sometimes it seems as if this globe this huge cyclorama of nations whirling in sunlight through stars were a mere empty mumbled repetition a going round and round of the same stupendous stupidities and the same heroisms in human life. One is always feeling as if everything arts architecture cables colleges nations had all almost literally happened before and the ages dark to us gone the same round of beginning struggling and ending then the globe was wiped clean and began again. One of the great advantages in emphasizing individuals the main idea of this book in picking out particular men as forces centers of energy and society as the basis for one's program for human nature is the sense it gives that things really can begin again begin anywhere where a man is one single human being deeply believed in glows up a world casts a kind of speculative value a divine wager over all the rest I confess that most men I have seen seem to me fantasmagorically walking the earth their lives haunting them hanging intangibly about them indefinitely postponed but one does not need in order to have a true joyous working theory of life to believe verbatim every moment in the mass of men as men one needs to believe in them very much as possible men larvae of great men and if in the meantime one can have what is quite practicable one sample of a square mile of what the mass of men in that mile might be or are going to be one comes to a considerable degree of enthusiasm a working and sharing enthusiasm for all the rest seven allowance I thought when I began to make my little visit in civilization this book that perhaps I ought to have a motto to visit a civilization with so the motto I selected a good one for all reformers viewers of institutions and things was do not shoot the organist he is doing the best he can I fear I have not lived up to it I am an optimist I cannot believe he is doing the best he can before I know it I get to hoping in scolding I do not even believe he is enjoying it most of the people in civilization are not enjoying it they are like people one sees on those they are not really enjoying what they are doing they enjoy thinking that other people think they are enjoying it the great characteristic enthusiasm of modern society of civilization the fad of showing off of exhibiting a life instead of living it very largely comes it is not too much to say from the lack of normal egoism of self joy in civilized human beings it has come like a kind of moral anemia people cannot get interested enough in anything to be interested in it by themselves hence no great art merely the art which is a trick or a knack of appearance we lack great art because we do not believe in great living the emphasis which would seem to be most to the point in civilization is that people must enjoy something something of their very own even if it is only their sins if they can do no better and they are their own it would be a beginning they could work out from that they would get the idea someone has said that people repent of their sins because they didn't enjoy them as much as they expected to well then let them enjoy their repentance the great point is in this world that men must get hold of reality somewhere somehow get the feel the feel of living before they try dying most of us seem to think we have to do them both up together it is to be admitted that people might not do really better things for their own joy than for other peoples but they would do them better it is not the object of this book to reform people reformers are sinners enjoying their own sins who try to keep other people from enjoying theirs the object of this book is to inspire people to enjoy anything to find a principle that underlies right and wrong both let people enjoy their sins we say if they really know how to enjoy the more they get the idea of enjoying anything the more vitally and sincerely they will run their course turn around and enjoy something truer and more lasting what we all feel what every man feels is that he has a personal need of daring and happy people around him people that are selfish enough to be alive and worthwhile people that have the habit and conviction of joy whose joys whether they are wrong or right are real joys to them not shadows or shows of joys joys that melt away when no one is looking the main difficulty is the present juncture of the world in writing on the lost art of reading is that all the other arts are lost the great self delights as they have all been lost together it has been necessary to go after them together to seek some way of securing conditions for the artist the enjoyer and prophet of human life in our modern time at the bottom of all great art it is necessary to believe there has been great believing free beautiful living this is not to say that inconsistency contradiction and insincerity have not played their part but it is the benediction the great amen of the world to say this that if there has been great constructive work there has been great radiant unconquerable constructive living behind it there is but one way to recover the lost art of reading it is to recover the lost art of living this is not saying that inconsistency contradiction and insincerity have not played their part but is the benediction the great amen of the world to say this that if there has been great constructive work there has been great radiant unconquerable constructive living behind it there's but one way to recover the lost art of reading it is to recover the lost art of living the day we begin to take the liberty of living our own lives there will be artists and seers everywhere we will all be artists and seers and great arts and great books and great readers of books will flock to us well here we are gentle reader we are rounding the corner of the last paragraph time stretches out before us on the great high road we stand together in the dawn I with my little book in hand you perhaps with yours the white road reaches away before us behind us there are crossroads there are parallels to sometimes when there falls a clearness on the air they are nearer than I thought I hear crowds trudging on them in the dark singing faintly I hear them cheering in the dark but this is my way right here see the hill there that is my next one the Sun in a minute you are going my way comrade you are not going my way so be it God be with you top of the morning to you I pass on and of section 19 and of the lost art of reading by Gerald Stanley Lee read by Joseph Tabler


Do you bake some really delicious cookies and you wanna turn that into a business? Well, you must watch this video towards the end because I'm reacting to this video, bang cookies that bakes more than 5,000 gooey cookies every single week. Let me give you my analysis and see whether they are the real deal or not. Hello friends, my name is Wilson, your friend in helping you build a thriving small business and a profitable food business. Today we're gonna be reacting to the bang cookie videos to see how they're making 5,000 cookies every single week and if this is something that you enjoy, make sure you guys smash the like button because it's just gonna be able to help me create more great videos just for you. So help me out here, smash the like button so then that way I can actually pay for Jason to edit the videos to be able to push it back out to you, okay? Now without further ado, let's dive right in. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No dessert is more classic than a deliciously gooey chocolate chip cookie and that's why people love bang cookies in New Jersey. The best way to describe it is like those cookies that you used to have in the cafeteria that are really gooey and gooey, but like it's cooked more, they're better than that. Three years ago, bang cookies was selling a few hundred cookies a day at farmer's markets. We sold out for an hour and we didn't expect that ever since then we sold out. It's really cool because a lot of big brands actually start from the farmer's market. Taking tiny little steps to prove their concept, to prove that people are actually wanting it before they take really bold actions, creating a restaurant and actually signing long term leases because they can actually prove, tweak their menu, tweak their price point, tweak their R&D to make sure they're creating something that their customers are wanting. So this is a really smart way of actually approaching business development. First day and then we took them selling out every single day at farmer's market. Now, George's team bakes more than 20,000 cookies a month. With a recipe he spent 15 years fine tuning. George and his team source ingredients from all over the world, whether it's grass-fed butter from New Zealand, chocolate chunks from Europe, or macadamia nuts from Hawaii. Each one affects the way these cookies bake and taste. The shop's best seller is its most classic rendition, the sea salt chocolate chunk cookie. So good. The recipe uses a mix of white and brown sugar, locally milled organic flour, grass-fed butter, and both milk and semi-sweet dark chocolate. Oh my God. Different chocolates give us different nuance and flavors, so it gives a more complexity. So it kind of counterbalances the difference between the sweetness of the actual milk chocolate versus the semi bitterness of semi-sweet chocolate chunk. Each cookie is topped with a sprinkle of sea salt because... When it hits your mouth, it hits it in a way that you're waiting into the cookie and then you're tasting the sweetness and the saltiness in combination. Enough. So good. Cookies, I love cookies. One of my favorite treats of all times. Something that he talked about is that he sources his ingredient from all over the world and I'm pretty sure when he first started off at the farmer's market, it wasn't like that. And he was just improving as the years went by. Took him 15 years. Guys, do not ever compare yourself at where you're at with where someone else's is at on their own journey. Do not be beaten down just because you're like, you know what, where do I get the resources? Where do I get the know-how? Where do I get the recipe and the opportunity to actually go and source from all these places?  Never ever do that because you can actually source from your local ingredients and your local grocery market and as long as you have the heart, as long as you have, you're always out there to gather customer feedback because they're the ones gonna tell you whether it's good, whether it's not good and then to improve it slowly and surely, you're gonna be able to grow a really loyal fan base because they see the progression in you and they're gonna grow with you and you're always improving to deliver that great cookie. Thought the menu. Love the s'mores. S'mores, I really love that one. I know they do a s'mores cookie really well. Nice and gooey with the crunchy outside. This one's notably more time consuming to make than the rest. Every single s'mores cookie that we do has to be pieced together with broken graham packages that we break by hand and then manually put it in. Finally, each cookie is individually packaged in plastic so customers can see exactly what's put on the inside. This is something really smart. Part of the reason why I believe is because with cookies, how much can you really sell cookies for? Two bucks, three bucks, four bucks? So at the end of the day, you do not want to sell individual cookies. You want to sell them by batches. Why? It is because it increases your average order value. That means you can actually sell 12 of them at the same time, 24 of them at the same time for people to share at home, for people to buy as gifts. Many more use cases when people are buying batch cookies instead of one single one. Instead of selling one at a farmer's market, now you can sell it to people that serves multiple different purpose. This is something that is called job to be done. Definitely, you guys, if you guys haven't done so, make sure you guys Google job to be done. It also keeps them fresh and soft. It's gooey, it's big, it can taste but it's organic, like it's good ingredients. Bank cookies didn't initially attract customers for cookies but rather the name of the shop itself. We wanted a name that would be able to draw attention because we didn't have the marketing points at all. We wanted something that's outlandish because we're the new players in the farmer's market so we started to call ourselves bang, me, bakery. That's what we're doing. A lot of customers would look over like, is that a real name? But yeah, it is, so try the cookies now. Super smart guy when he's able to do something like this. At the end of the day, it's all about talking points and if you can create something just a little bit more out of the ordinary, that's gonna be your talking point. So whether it is a bigger size cookie, the size of your face, that would have to be a talking point or you're talking about using random ingredients like for example, cereal. 10 years ago, cereal milk was not a popular ingredient and they were made popular because of certain chefs and how they brought it into the mainstream. So using side ingredients is a really great way for you to create a talking point for your product and your brand. The name changed to be a bit more kid-friendly but the customers kept coming. It's 5.26, we're trying to get a line. 4.10, because Jessica at the pizza shop said we have to try them, that they are so awesome and plus the please get a hearty shirt. And with so much demand, Bang Cookies has already opened two locations in Jersey City and they've got plans for more to come. That means more cookies for customers across the country who've already had them shipped to states like California, Alaska and Hawaii. This is the reason why it is so important for all of us to understand the product's election and also being able to utilize what is happening today with technology and everything. Utilize the logistics that is available for us today. Utilize the third-party apps, utilize Go's kitchens, utilize your product and the nature and characteristics of your product because when you're able to do that, you can reach a lot more people than your local vicinity. Nowadays, when we're thinking about food, we need to be able to open up our minds because it is no longer limited by the location of where our shop is anymore. No, we can sell nationally and even internationally, even as a cookie. The chocolate is so nice. Oh my God. It's so deliciously melted. You're not getting hit over the head with sweetness because you kind of have those two chocolate to balance each other out. And then you have the savory sweet component in everybody, which is great. That's why I think the sea salt chocolate tongue is probably one of their best selling cookies. Wow. You have great texture. Like the powder edges are so nicely crisp. And then like chewy, gooey, gooey. Thank you. This is not helping with my diet at all, Jason. I can't pull apart my hands. Sometimes you get these giant mass of cookies and they could have that like dip in the middle where you can put it in your mouth. Oh, I just need a glass of milk now. But this is not like that. A cheat day once a week and every cheat day I have to have things with you if you only have it in the freezer, they're amazing. You're so good. They're one of my favorites. I would say at least like once every month we like make it a thing to like, we definitely make it a thing.  Oh my goodness. Guys, they're definitely the real deal. Something to notice here is that when you see these people or they're coming back again and again for their item, that's called repeat customer. For you, when you're operating a food business, this is super important for you to understand. For you to have a legitimate business, a sustainable business, always look for the repeat customer. If your item is a fad, if it is something that's just gonna fizzle out, people are gonna try it once and never come back, then that is not a good item because you don't have a business.   People are gonna try it out once, never ever gonna come back again. So look for the repeat customer, guys. So there you go, friends. My reaction to them, bang cookies, selling 5,000 cookies every single week. Something that I really, really enjoy. You know what? Looking at this video is quite torturous because I just had my lunch and I'm craving a cookie, which I'm gonna get right after this video. But if you guys enjoyed this video, if you guys liked this analysis, if you guys enjoyed the stories that I'm sharing with you, guys, make sure you guys smash the like button because it's gonna help the YouTube algorithm show it to more people. So in that way, I know this is the type of video that you enjoy. So in that way, I can make more of these videos for you guys. So smash the like button right now. Otherwise, leave me a comment in the section below. Let me know how I can improve on these videos so then that way I can make better videos just for you. Otherwise, I'll see you guys in the next video.


This is stock number 9689. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters today. We are checking out this super clean 2016 Chevy Silverado 2500 crew cab short box. Remember we are the guys with the trucks on 41 today We are taking a look at this super clean truck and from this HD video You will be able to tell just how clean this truck is inside and out Front bumper is in excellent shape. No dents. No dings. No scuffs. No scrapes Factory fog lights has the projector lamp headlamps. The Lenses are nice and clear. Summit white is Appropriately the color on this truck We shoot all of our videos in 1080p So if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device Turn them on right now because it's like you're right here looking at the truck with me Has the factory chromed alloy rims These are actually Denali rims on here, and it has like new general grabber LT 265 70 R18 tires on it. These tires have about Let's say 80 to 90 percent of the tread left. Maybe even a little bit more Front fender is in really nice condition The hood is in really nice condition as well You can see any dents or dings on that Front grille is absolutely perfect More valence is in nice shape as well passenger side rim Excellent condition and that tire is just as much tried as the driver's side As you go down this side of the truck you can see just how clean that body is How reflective and mirror like that paint is We take these HD videos So if you are far away or even if you're close behind just cannot make the trip down You can still see the truck here the truck and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at Before you even get here I do have the cab lights on right now to show you how those Lights in the roof and the mirrors work no dense or dings down this side of the truck Lower rockers look like they're nice and clean That's some aftermarket chrome step bars Back rims are in nice condition as well And the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires You can see the frame in the underbody is in nice condition. It's like that all the way underneath Boxes in nice condition as well as we come around to the back No dense or dings on that rear bumper. You can see it has the in bumper step-ups The tailgate is in excellent shape You can see any dense or dings on that and it does have a trucks port tonneau cover Has the shock assist tailgate so it's never gonna slam down on you drop in bed liner Is a rugged liner Nice condition Tonneau is in pretty nice condition as well.  I guess you could say no rips or tears Factory all-weather floor mats throughout has the turndile four-wheel drive auto headlamps and factory brake controller as We hop inside the truck here. You can see that this truck has 48,129 miles You get the leather wrapped steering wheel Part of the LT one package you got audio and Bluetooth controls on the right cruise controls on the left has the six-speed Allison transmission You have the Chevy my link Screen right there AM FM and serious XM radio capabilities. This is also where your backup camera shows up You do get a CD player dual climate control stability control there's for your cargo lamps That turns Moff downhill assist control and then your factory exhaust break Passenger and driver side climate control dual glove boxes Factory all-weather floor mat on that side carpeting is nice and clean and that passenger seat Is very clean as well This truck does come with side current airbags and the headliner is in really nice condition too You have map lights up there and on-star capabilities on your back on your rear view mirror We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we will check out under the hood I'd like to thank you for checking out the video today and The back seats just as clean as those front seats. No rips. No tears back here. It does have that latch Child safety system the fixed glass rear window with the built-in rear defrost and the carpeting is very very clean Back here factory all-weather floor mats back here as well And that's the latch Anchors right there Smells very clean inside the truck as well. Once again, I'd like to thank you for checking out the video Hopefully from this video you'll have been able to tell how nice and clean this truck is Under the hood we have the 6.6 liter Duramax diesel with the LML motor Engine bay is very clean runs very smooth This truck has been fully safe eat and inspected by our service shop Has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off And this truck is 100% ready to go To see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 400 new and used cars trucks SCVs minivans Wranglers half tons three quarter tons one tons you name it We got to go to our website www.SummitAuto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle on our lot videos of every single Used vehicle that we have all at SummitAuto.com if you want to check out just our used inventory You can go to truckson41.com.  Once again, our number is<PHONE_NUMBER> Thanks again for checking out the video And if you want to check out more videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto remember to like Subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there In fact in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left a link to more heavy-duty truck videos Like this one on your right if you have not been to our website on the bottom a link to this vehicle on our website Click those check us out. We really look forward to helping with this super clean 2016 Chevy Silverado 2500 crew cab short box LT1 Duramax diesel. Thanks again