The measures which the museum curator takes to present the thing to the public areself-liquidating. The upshot of the curator’s efforts are not that everyone can see theexhibit but that no one can see it. The curator protests: why are they so indifferent?W hy do they even d eface the exhibit? D on’t they know it is theirs? But it is not theirs.It is his, the cura tor’s. By the most exclusive sort of zoning, the museum exhibit, thepark oak tree, is part of an ensemble, a package, which is almost impenetrable to them.The archaeolo gist who p uts his find in a museum so that everyone can see itaccomplishes the reverse of his expectations. The result of his action is that no one cansee it now but the archeologist. He would have done better to kee p it in his pocket andshow it now and then to strangers.

I wish to propose thefollowing educational technique which should prove equally effective for Harvard andShreveport High School. I propose that English poetry and biology should be taught asusual, but that at irregular intervals, p oetry stud ents sho uld find dogfishes on theirdesks and biology students should find Shakesp eare sonnets on their dissection bo ards

The sonnet and the dogfish are obscured by two different proce sses. The sonnet isobscured by the symbolic package which is formulated not by the sonnet itself but bythe media through which the sonnet is transmitted, the media which the educatorsbelieve for some reason to be transp arent. The new textbook, the type, the smell of thepage, the classroom , the alum inum windows and the winter sky, the personality ofMiss Hawkins— these m edia w hich are supposed to transmit the sonnet may o nlysucceed in transmitting themselves

. By virtue of the fact that he hasother fish to fry, he may take a stroll along the rim after supper and then we can see thecanyon through him.

In other words, hesees the canyon by avoiding all the facilities for seeing the canyon.

Seeing the canyon is made even more difficult by what the sightseer does when themoment arrives, when sovereign knower confronts the thing to be known. Instead oflooking at it, he photographs it. There is no co nfrontation at all. A t the end of fortyyears of preformulation and with the G rand Canyon yawning a t his feet, what does hedo? He waives his right of seeing and knowing and records sym bols fo r the nex t fortyyears. For him there is no present; there is o nly the past of what has been formulatedand seen and the future of what has been formulated and not seen. T he present issurrendered to the past and the future

Formo sa