No generation can bequeath what it has not got

No generation can bequeath to its successor what it has not got.  You may frame the syllabus as you please.  But when you have planned and reported ad nauseam, if we are sceptical we shall teach only scepticism to our pupils, if fools only folly, if vulgar only vulgarity, if saints sanctity, if heroes heroism.  . . .  Nothing which was not in the teachers can flow from them into the pupils.  We shall admit that a man who knows no Greek himself cannot teach Greek to his form: but it is equally certain that a man whose mind was formed in a period of cynicism and disillusion, cannot teach hope or fortitude.

C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock , “On the Transmission of Christianity” (1946), para. 5.

The No generation can bequeath what it has not got by Alan Burrow, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.