It's a failure of national vision when you regard children as weapons, and talents as materials you can mine, assay, and fabricate for profit and defense.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the misguided priorities of society that see children as tools for exploitation rather than nurturing their potential.
John Hersey's quote emphasizes the tragic failure of societal values when children are viewed merely as instruments for gain or instruments of power, rather than as individuals with unique potentials that need to be nurtured. By comparing children to weapons and talents to materials, it criticizes systems that prioritize profit and defense over the holistic development of future generations, urging a shift in perspective that recognizes the intrinsic worth of every child and their capabilities.
In practice
In a speech about educational reform, one might quote this to highlight the importance of prioritizing child development over profit.
Do not work primarily for money; do your duty to patients first and let the money follow; our life is short, we don't live twice; the whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them, but then it will drop them and they will form a pile.
To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again and once more, and over and over.
The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?
Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.
The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school.
It's never enough to just tell people about some new insight. Rather, you have to get them to experience it a way that evokes its power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people's heads, you need to help them grind anew set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way.
We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
We do not trust educated people and rarely, alas, produce them, for we do not trust the independence of mind which alone makes a genuine education possible.
Let me make it clear that the Youth Employment Opportunities Act of 1961 is not primarily concerned with delinquency prevention. Rather, it is designed to help all types of young men or women who suffer deficiencies of training or opportunity which keep them unemployed.
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
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