Line by Line - Verse 41, Line 2

Scholars of the middle class, when they have heard about it, seem now to keep it and now to lose it.
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

The average student hears of the Tao and gives it thought now and again.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

Average people hear of the Tao
They sometimes keep it and sometimes lose it
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

When an ordinary person
hears about Tao,
he tries to get right with it,
but eventually gives up.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~

The second type of student I tended to encounter in college was...well...pedantic! They read whatever was assigned from cover-to-cover. They were well-practiced at remembering arcane facts and figures. They were masters at figuring out what each professor wanted to hear and they could easily disgorge it without much thought.

Remarkably, unlike the students described in yesterday's Line by Line post, these were the folks who most often received the best grades (or highest marks). Yet, for all their academic prowess, far too many of these students seemed incapable or unwilling of incorporating what they learned from their studies into their overall knowledge base.

Once finished with their formal education, they burst out into the world with a tremendous amount of theoretical knowledge, yet they surprisingly lacked even a modicum of practical smarts!

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