Edmund Gosse’s early failures gave him the mental discipline he drew upon for later successes. He relates:
What is actually taught in early childhood is often that part of training which makes least impression on the character, and is of the least permanent importance. My labours failed to make me a zoölogist, and the multitude of my designs and my descriptions have left me helplessly ignorant of the anatomy of a sea-anemone. But I cannot look upon the mental discipline as useless. It taught me to concentrate my attention, to define the nature of distinctions, to see accurately, and to name what I saw. Moreover, it gave me the habit of going on with any piece of work I had in hand, not flagging because the interest or picturesqueness of the theme had declined, but pushing forth towards a definite goal, well-foreseen and limited beforehand. For almost any intellectual employment in later life, it seems to me that this discipline was valuable. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 261.)
This is not scientific evidence; it is anecdotal evidence. Is it any less true for that? In our book, it is stronger.
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For a brief biography of Edmund Gosse, click here.
For an explanation of anecdotal evidence relative to scientific evidence, click here.
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