“BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY, PROF!”

One of the clerks at our post office on the university campus has a son in my special philosophy class at Denton High School. I have now known and admired the son for several months, but the father was only recently transferred to our campus. He and I have been getting acquainted lately, for he helps me in my philatelic interests, and without such help I’m sure I could not keep up with nor procure the new stamps as they are issued.

It was only today that I learned that he was the father of one of my more inquiring students. The boy is interested in “entering the ministry,” but he is curious about everything. He gets excited over such problems as good and evil, freedom and determinism, and the nature of God. And he asks all sorts of hard questions, which his teacher has a way of tossing back at him. His mind is alive and hungry. It is refreshing to have him around. If he “enters the ministry,” and I am afraid I know what that means, I will be uneasy about what might happen to him.

Anyway, the father said something to me awhile ago that for some reason penetrated into my inmost self. Referring to the influence he thought I was having on his son, he said, “You’d better be careful what you say to him, Prof.”

Some words have a way of lingering, even more than the one who says them ever imagines. On the short walk back to my office I forgot all about stamps and thought about a bright high school boy and about what might happen to him in life. “Yes, indeed, professor, be careful what you say,” I said to myself. The father’s words so burned within me that I had to sit down at once and write about them as if in response to the Promethean spark.

“But can’t one be too careful,” I thought. And is it not true that parents sometimes mean “Don’t confuse my son” when they plead for caution? A Harvard professor told me that a father once said to him, “Don’t teach my boy anything he doesn’t already know.” Do parents really want their sons to think? There are a lot of holy cows in the lives of most families. Some are sexual, some political, some religious. Do today’s parents want their children to think critically about these cows?

There is something I like about caution. It seems to be a virtue, at least in some areas of our lives—in spending money, driving automobiles, wiping the China, and many other things perhaps. But I do not think of caution as one of the crowning virtues of the good teacher—or the good editor for that matter. It may be better to teach dangerously and to edit dangersouly. If one is too cautious, he will miss the precipitousness of life, without which life would be dull. I cast my vote for danger.

Jesus could hardly be described as cautious. He told men to let the dead bury their own dead, and for them to come and follow him. He taught men to lay up treasures in heaven rather than on earth. He even told a man to sell all that he had and give it to the poor. He associated violence with entering the kingdom of heaven. It all ended up with him getting himself crucified and his disciples getting themselves jailed or killed. Surely caution would have been the wiser course.

Socrates was accused of corrupting the minds of his students. I always ask my students when they read this charge against the old philosopher: “Are you being corrupted in this class?” We usually conclude that there is a sense in which they are being corrupted — if in no other way in that the sacred cows are marched by under close scrutiny. A cautious Socrates hardly sounds right. They said of him that he made the better appear the worse and the worse appear the better. In other words he confused their values, shoddy and’ shallow as they were, and recomplexified the questions that they had answered all too easily. That is dangerous business. It cost Socrates his life.

And yet I suppose it could be said to any teacher, “Be careful what you say,” for caution is in some ways very important. It is irresponsible for a teacher to confuse a student unnecessarily, and reckless statements are senseless. And surely a teacher is being cautious when he keeps his purpose clearly in view: to educate rather than indoctrinate, to analyze rather than advocate. And of course caution must be shown in deciding what should be said to whom. Jesus once told his disciples that he had a lot of things to say to them, but that they were not ready for them yet. That is caution.

In today’s class where sat the father’s son we were analyzing an Irish philosopher’s principle for moral and social obligation: “Be a person and recognize and treat others as persons.” We all agreed that these were nice, pretty words, but before the hour was over we were treading in dangerous water. To be a person means to be free. But what does it mean to be free? The kids were asking each other such questions as: Do you have the right to make a person do what you know to be for his good? Do we have the right to do what is wrong? Does a man have the right to take his own life?

The Irish thinker stated that man’s dominance over nature carried with it the risk that would suppose he were the master of his own fate. I asked for reasons why it would be difficult for man to draw such a conclusion. One lad pointed out that man could hardly suppose he has his destiny in his own hands so long as he had to bury his loved ones. Another said the human factors were too strong for such a conclusion.

The philosopher we were reading went on to say that the most serious hazard of all of man’s scientific progress is that he may try to control his fellowmen. I asked the class for any tendencies discernible to them toward such control over men’s minds and lives. A Latin-American lad stated that he could see this in his church. Another student saw it in the schools and in the press. And this got us into distinguishing between moral suasion and coercion, propaganda and information.

It is a dangerous world in my philosophy classes, and I am not interested in making it safe. When they reveal to me that they are confused, I disturb them further by saying, “Splendid. That is what is supposed to happen. Maybe you need to be.”

And yet amidst it all I try to be careful and not let the knife slip. I keep a loving and critical eye out for the father’s son, and for all the rest.

“Better be careful what you say to him, prof.” Yes, we must be careful. But let us not forget that a dangerous world is awaiting him. So let’s teach him to think. Let us, therefore, be careful not to be too careful.