There sings the nightingale∗

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I would like to begin my discussion by recalling to your memory a familiar childhood story. It is a story written by Hans Christian Andersen, that teller of tales of magic and of eternal truth. There is in his story, Nightingale, a parable which concerns us. You will remember the story of the nightingale. Once upon a time there was an emperor in China who discovered, in his kingdom, a nightingale, a little unpretentious bird who sang in the dark night, with a voice so beautiful that it brought tears to the eyes of the listeners. Its song went straight to the heart. You will remember that the whole city spoke of the remarkable bird, and when two people met, one said nothing but Nightin, and the other said gale; and then they sighed, and understood one another. Eleven grocers' children were named after the bird, but not one of them could sing a note. But the Emperor of Japan sent to the Emperor of China a mechanical nightingale, one which could be wound with a key. And the Emperor of China was greatly interested in the mechanical bird. The courtiers were impressed with the ingenuity of the mind that had conceived it. The people were delighted with the artificial nightingale. It made just as much of a sensation as the real one, and then it was much more handsome to look at-it shone like bracelets and breastpins. They listened to its singing. Three and thirty times over it sang the same piece, still it was not tired. The people would gladly have heard it again, but the emperor said that the living nightingale ought to sing something now. But where was it? No one had noticed that it had flown away out of the open window, back to the green wood. The real nightingale was forgotten, lost. Now it seems to me that we who live in America, we who enjoy the pleasures and profits of college life, are much like the Emperor of China. We, like him, belong to a privileged class. We are prone to