[bell ringing]
Miss White: Time to go for Swedish Drill with Miss Duran.
[much bustling and putting on of shawls]
Miss Glass: Wait, what? Oh my, girls, I just discovered something important here. Don’t go…All right, fine, I’ll read it on the way.
Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill
To manage books, and things, and make them act
On infant minds as surely as the sun
Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time,
The guides and wardens of our faculties,
Miss Capehart: Oh, not the faculties again. Look, there goes a hawk.
Miss Glass: But did you notice? “Books, and things.”
Sages who in their prescience would control
All accidents, and to the very road
Which they have fashioned would confine us down,
Like engines; when will their presumption learn,
That in the unreasoning progress of the world
A wiser spirit is at work for us,
A better eye than theirs, most prodigal
Of blessings, and most studious of our good,
Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours?
Miss White: Swedish Drill is not exactly my most fruitful hour.
Miss Capehart: Well, wiser spirits have decided.
Miss Glass:
A race of real children; not too wise,
Too learned, or too good; / but wanton, fresh,
And bandied up and down by love and hate;
Not unresentful where self-justified;
Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy;
Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds;
Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft
Bending beneath our life’s mysterious weight
Of pain, and doubt, and fear, yet yielding not
In happiness to the happiest upon earth.
Simplicity in habit, truth in speech,
Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds;
May books and Nature be their early joy!
And knowledge, rightly honoured with that name —
Knowledge not purchased by the loss of power!
Miss Laurio: Simplicity in habit, truth in speech.
Miss Breckenridge: And power over oneself. Yes, we get it.
Miss Bruce: And Miss Mason obviously did too.