"Of what use to mankind is a land that is rich in bank stocks and poor in brain power? Or one that has cheap transportation and cheap thoughts? Shall we boast of a country that can supply the world with coal and gold but cannot add to its art, its literature, or its religious ideals?...
"[L]et us see to it that the priceless efforts of childhood, priceless because they mean the development of inner power, are never ridiculed or discouraged, nor set aside as worthless, but, rather, that they shall be encouraged...God never meant that any human life should be a failure. And could we carry true mother-love to all humanity no life need be a failure.

"Great is the work before us!"

--How Shall We Best Conserve Our Nations Moral Forces, An address delivered before the National Congress of Mothers by Elizabeth Harrison, June 12, 1910

Art credit: Hawaiian Mother and Child by Charles Bartlett

"So precisely suited is the story-telling method to the teaching of history that we can say that children cannot acquire a right knowledge of history in any other way. It is the way in which all history was once taught--and taught so that it was never forgotten."
--Emelyn Partridge

Art credit: Horatius by Fyodor Bronnikov

"If literature is to regain its sway over the heart and its ministry in life, there must be a greater return to the oral and auditory basis of appeal...Because our culture is increasingly eye-minded, it is necessarily less emotionalized and less vital, less joyous and spontaneous."

--Percival Chubb (1914)

Art credit: Exciting Story by Tihamer Margitay

"It is not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It is our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."

--L. R. Knost

Art credit: Grandfather's Little Nurse by James Hayllar

"A few bars of music is worth more than a basketful of words."
--Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

Art credit: A Music Party by Arthur Hughes

In the 15th century, Ulrich von Hutten, A German knight, exclaimed:

"What an age! Studies flourish, minds are awakening; it is a joy merely to be alive!"

I hope we are saying the same thing today!

Art credit: New Body Armor by Franz Meyerheim

"[H]istory cannot be correctly told by a simple recital of facts... To the ignorant crowd, the history of the world presents a confused chaos; but to men of thought, it appears as a majestic temple on which the invisible hand of God is at work."
--J. H. Ward

"So it is. One man walks through the world with his eyes open, another with his eyes shut; and upon this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge which one man acquires over another."
--Charles Kingsley

Art credit: Two Girls Picking Flowers in a Forest in Springtime by Hans Andersen Brendekilde

From today's harp lesson:

"It is not what you play in the moment, but where you go from there."

There are no mistakes in music because of that. Maybe I should clarify that--when you are playing someone else's music, you may not play it 'right'. But when the music is coming out of your own heart, like I am learning to do, there are no mistakes.

And the same thing applies to this WEH journey. Start where you are--it isn't what you are doing right now, but where you go from here that matters. There are no 'mistakes' when you stop trying to play someone else's music. Just keep playing.

Art credit: Children's Concert by George Iakovidis

"If all thy mortal goods thou art bereft
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."
--Saadi

Art credit: Hyacinths and a Butterfly by Alfrida Baadsgaard