My father often helped me with homework after dinner. Whatever we were studying, he found a way to offer up his philosophy of civilization. “The Roman Empire lasted a thousand years,” he would say. “Our country hasn’t even been around for two hundred.”
I called him the “Fountain of Knowledge” because it seemed like he knew everything.” That made him laugh, of course, but it also made him pleased — and he basked in my admiration until I went off to college.
By then, I already suspected that my dad didn’t know everything and that was okay. Because what he taught me wasn’t about knowing. It was about learning, the value of learning for its own sake—for the joy of discovery. Which was a pretty good preparation for college, also for life.
Years later, when I became a parent and helped my daughter with homework, I often said,
“I don’t know but someone does and we can find out.”
It was no surprise when she became a research librarian. Finding out was the fun.
And, finding out was forever.
