Schools
Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923), philosopher, critic, satirist –
and better to be the last than either of the former (even if you influenced
Wittgenstein). Also, fabulist! Among his works were the fables of Aus dem
Märchenbuch der Wahrheit (From the Fairytale Book of Truth),
including the following, in my poor translation. (The original is here.)
The School of Giving and the School of Receiving
by Franz
Mauthner
In the
midst of all that is floated an island; it looked like Earth. On the island
lived two kinds of people, the rich and the poor. The rich gave and the poor
received. If only the rich knew how to give and the poor knew how to receive as
both were taught by the Book of Joy in the old Sunland! But no one on the
island had thought of that, teaching giving or receiving.
Then, a young King came to power, and he
resolved in his heart to make the Book of Joy into law. “Happiness is duty” was its first regulation.
And the young king wished to teach what in the end was needed most, giving and
receiving. He built two very large schools and established chairs in them for teachers
of that wisdom most needed.
The
one school was set up for the rich, who were to learn to give: a simple
building, modest outside and in. Over the humble entrance were the words:
“Please . . . Thank you.” These were to remind the rich first to say “please,”
that the poor would accept their gift, and then to thank them for doing so.
Humility and suffering – that’s what the rich were to learn, who went into the
school of giving.
The other school was set up for the poor,
who should learn to receive: a bright and beautiful building, a palace! In gold
in marble the motto: “To you will be given, that you may be happy.” For one
ruling of the Book of Joy was this: “To receive is even more blessed than to
give.” High and splendid was the entryway, wreathed in flowers that would never
fade. Proud and happy should they be that entered the school of receiving.
While the building was still in progress,
the young King called the teachers together to instruct them: that receiving was
more blessed than giving, that the rich poor could make the poor
rich man happier than he could make them. He wanted to impress these things on
them. But because they had grown up under a different law, the teachers didn’t
understand the Book of Joy. This so grieved the young king, and he was buried
under a mound of green. The angel of death smiled an odd smile.
 |
| The school for the poor taken over by the rich. |
Soon after, the school buildings were finished. The people cherished their thoughts of the young King, and they streamed into the schools, where giving and receiving could be learned. But because the teachers had not understood the Book of Joy, because the poor believed the motto “Please . . . Thank you” was written for them and the rich exactly the opposite motto, “To you will be given that you may be happy,” was forthem, and because tradition did after all invite the rich into palaces and the poor into simple bouses, they ended up, rich and poor, in the wrong schools.
The rich did not learn giving. What was
intended for the poor, that they learn good cheer and pride, the rich learned
instead. And only the better among them also learned to be embarrassed by their
good cheer and how not to let their pride turn into arrogance.
The poor didn’t learn how to receive. What
was intended for the rich, they learned instead, suffering and humility. And
only the better among them learned how to keep their suffering from becoming
hate, their humility from becoming self-abasement.
Now as before the two schools stand on the
island, which looks like Earth in the midst of all there is. Now as before the
rich and the poor attend the wrong schools and don’t know it. The Book of Joy
has been lost.
Good fairies are preparing a cradle
for a prince that is coming. They plan to grant him the grace to find once
again the Book of Joy. Then he can teach people right giving and right
receiving.
So, as the Philosopher (the second Joseph) said – again and
again: “There it is.”
05.26.20
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* More on Mauthner
here.
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