§ 48: Add to this narrative embedding and style – 1) The embedding of abstracts truths, which could not be entirely passed over, in allegories and instructive individual examples are presented as actual occurrences. Of this sort are: the creation under the image of the dawning day, the origin of moral evil in the story of the forbidden tree, the source of linguistic diversity in the story of the tower of Babel, etc.
§ 49: 2) The style – sometimes plain and simple, sometimes poetical, always full of tautologies, but of the sort that exercises one’s acumen, since sometimes it appears to be saying something different while really saying the same thing, and sometimes it appears to be saying the same thing, while really implying, or potentially implying, something different –
§ 50: And you have all the good qualities of a primer, for children as well as for a childlike people.
§ 51: But every primer is only for a certain age. To persist in using a primer longer than recommended, when a child has outgrown it, is harmful. For in order to do this in a somewhat useful kind of way, one must read more into it than is really there, insert more into it than it can contain. One must look for and make too many allusions and hints; squeeze too much out of the allegories; interpret examples too circumstantially; squeeze the words too hard. This gives the child a narrow, skewed, hair-splitting understanding; it makes him secretive, superstitious, full of contempt for all that is comprehensible and easy to understand.
§ 52: The very way in which the Rabbis handled their sacred books! The very character that they thereby imparted to the character of their people!
§ 53: A better Instructor must come and rip the exhausted primer from the child's hands. Christ came!
§ 54: That portion of the human race that God had wanted to include in one educational plan was ripe for the second great step in its education. But he had only wanted to include in the plan that portion of the human race that had already united itself through language, deeds, government, and other natural and political relationships.
§ 55: That is, that portion of the human race that had come so far in the exercise of its reason that it required, and could make use of, nobler and worthier motives for moral action than temporal rewards and punishments, which had hitherto been its guide. The child had become a boy. Sweetmeats and toys gave way to the budding desire to become just as free, just as honored, and just as happy as its elder brethren.
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