Sobre a Educação

Ainda sob os efeitos de Momo (mentira, fiquei em casa vendo TV), trago esse trecho de Alice no País das Maravilhas (pois é, antes tarde do que nunca). Achei que Cynthia iria gostar...

Jonatas

"`Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.
`We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock
Turtle angrily: `really you are very dull!'
`You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple
question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and
looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At
last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, `Drive on, old fellow!
Don't be all day about it!' and he went on in these words:
`Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe
it--'
`I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.
`You did,' said the Mock Turtle.
`Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak
again. The Mock Turtle went on.
`We had the best of educations--in fact, we went to school
every day--'
`I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; `you needn't be
so proud as all that.'
`With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
`Yes,' said Alice, `we learned French and music.'
`And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.
`Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.
`Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock
Turtle in a tone of great relief. `Now at OURS they had at the
end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'
`You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; `living at the
bottom of the sea.'
`I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a
sigh. `I only took the regular course.'
`What was that?' inquired Alice.
`Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock
Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic--
Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'
`I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say. `What is it?'
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never
heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is,
I suppose?'
`Yes,' said Alice doubtfully: `it means--to--make--anything--prettier.'
`Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to
uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.'
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about
it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you
to learn?'
`Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting
off the subjects on his flappers, `--Mystery, ancient and modern,
with Seaography: then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old
conger-eel, that used to come once a week: HE taught us
Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'
`What was THAT like?' said Alice.
`Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said: `I'm
too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.'
`Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon: `I went to the Classics
master, though. He was an old crab, HE was.'
`I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: `he
taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.'
`So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn;
and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.
`And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a
hurry to change the subject.
`Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the
next, and so on.'
`What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.
`That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon
remarked: `because they lessen from day to day.'
This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a
little before she made her next remark. `Then the eleventh day
must have been a holiday?'"