We have lost the capacity for appreciating anything new, said the Teacher. We communicate in words and words are symbols, packages of past experience. Whenever a new idea is presented, the listener promptly tucks it away in his memory where his past experience is stored. We do not receive it as a fresh experience. We reduce it to the dimensions of an old experience so that it can fit snugly into our perceptions. We therefore cannot learn anything that we already do not know.

The pupils seemed astonished by this statement and asked , " Why then do you accept us as pupils if you cannot teach us anything new ?"

The teacher remained silent, smiling for a while, and spoke.

" You see," he said ,"you are already reacting to what I have said from your preconceived notions of what a teacher's function is. You are not teachers but you presume to know the duty of a teacher."

Now, even more perplexed, they asked him for more clarification of the meaning of his statement.

The teacher asked them to follow him into a forest nearby and pointed to a flower they had never seen before. And waited.

One pupil said: "It is like a rose."

Another said: "It is like a carnation."

A third said: " It is like a dahlia."

A fourth said: "It is like a chrysanthemum."

The teacher smiled gently again and then remarked: "There is nothing new, is there?", and returned home.