Zur nie endgültig zu klärenden Frage, wann man jungen Menschen kulturelle Güter nahebringen sollte
Agatha Christie ist siebzehn, als sie mit ihrer Mutter einige Monate in Ägypten verbringt. In ihrer Autobiografie schreibt sie über diese Zeit:
I soon became mad about polo, and used to watch it every afternoon. Mother tried to broaden my mind by taking me occasionally to the Museum, and also suggested we should go up the Nile and see the glories of Luxor. I protested passionately, with tears in my eyes, ‚Oh no, mother, oh no, don’t let’s go away now. There’s the fancy dress dance on Monday, and I promised to go on a picnic to Sakkara on Tuesday…‘ and so on and so forth. The wonders of antiquity were the last thing I cared to see, and I am very glad she did not take me. Luxor, Karnak, the beauties of Egypt, were to come upon me with wonderful impact about twenty years later. How it would have spoilt them for me if I had seen them then with unappreciative eyes.
There is no greater mistake in life than seeing things or hearing them at the wrong time. Shakespeare is ruined for most people by having been made to learn it at school; you should see Shakespeare as it was written to be seen, played on the stage. There you can appreciate it quite young, long before you take in the beauty of the words and of the poetry. (S. 171)
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