Charles Darwin on the benefits of poetry and music

    Possibly if the young mothers of the world heeded Charles Darwin’s advice, their children would grow up with greater moral character than most of them are now destined for:

. . . if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. (Quoted from Charles Darwin’s Autobiography, New York: Henry Schulman Inc., 1950, p. 67.)

    For a brief biography of Charles Darwin, click here.

Comments

[Rebecca Haden]

That's lovely. I just read the Official Reasons for Teaching Poetry (supports NCLB requirements, provides an acceptable way to express emotion, encourages patterning...), and none of them is nearly as persuasive.