| The next thing is to acquaint the child with the customs of the country where it was born and has to live. It is the absence of this knowledge that makes people continue their old customs without knowing what they are and why they are; people go on sometimes for thousands of years following the same custom and yet not knowing the meaning of it. People in the East are very keen on their ancient customs, and very often they have followed those customs for more than a thousand years without knowing why and what is in them; they do it only because it is a custom. But it happens also in the West, where in some places there is a festival almost every day. It would be good for a child to know why such a custom exists, what is the good of it, what is the meaning of it, what we derive from it and what it suggests. |
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