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Last Monday evening the Cambridge School board voted to have Superintendent Fitzgerald investigate the topics discussed by the Philosophy Club at the High and Latin School. So for the moment Cambridge shares with cities further from the center of culture the stigma of assininity.
Committeeman John F. Hayes who made the motion said that he had received complaints that the members of the club were discussing immortality and religion which he believes subjects too deep for immature minds. One might add that these are too deep for any mind. If Mr. Hayes implies that maturity alone gives carte blanche to teleogical problems, he is certainly sangine and at least an anti-Platonist. For Plato had much faith in the thoughts of children.
What he is afraid of is of course obvious. He does not want to be confronted with difficult questions over the evening paper. And no father or member of a school board can be expected to know his metaphysics. But he should not object to the thinking of the members of the club per se.
In a country where thought is so rare, where it is so delightful when apparent, not even a Cambridge school commissioner should place too little value upon it. He wants his sons to grow up free from ideas on the nature of things; he should fear lest they grow up with none at all.
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