running for the shelves

Dear súbditos,

There is no way your kids can be educated in a climate of free, responsible, rational enquiry and discussion when they are exposed to a philosophy of learning such as that one exemplified by this textbook.

The intellectual climate they face in classrooms at Coimbra, judging from this textbook, must be one of the most strict authoritarian dogmatism where even the most curious and courageous student does not feel free to ask a question for fear of being ridiculed, threatened or insulted, if not by the Professor himself, at least by his fellow-students. For, in an environment of free, rational discussion the credibility of this Professor would be ruined in five minutes by any median student.

For example, take this assertion:

"Professor, could you please explain for us why, por um lado, é verdade que somos um astro?. And, by the way, which lado?"

Or take this other sentence:

"Why, Sir, it must be so that a nossa natural indeterminação [whatever that means and if that is natural at all] tem de ser compensada com uma determinação, que a nossa natural divergência tem de ser compensada com uma convergência e que a nossa natural mutabilidade tem de ser compensada com uma imutabilidade? Why, Sir, for God's sake, all this must be a logical necessity?"

This other quotation raises a multiplicity of simple questions. For example:

.

"Professor, could you please explain what you mean by hipocritamente in this sentence? Are you saying that all of us in this classroom, including yourself, are a bunch of hypocrites? If so, why should we be sitting here listening to you and learning from you how to become hypocrites like yourself - if, by any chance, we are not already so?".

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Not only this Professor would be promptly ruined in a climate of rational, free enquiry. He would be soon covered by ridicule. Take the quotation on nurse Fátima.

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"Why is it, Sir, that nurse Fátima inspires in you such a praticamente imperiosa súplica: por amor de Deus deixe de ser enfermeira um momentinho sô dona Fátima? Professor, just tell us what would you be intent upon doing to nurse Fátima if, by any chance, she decided to stop being a nurse for a momentinho and become simply a woman? Are you sure you would succeed at it? I do not believe so. I certainly can see nurse Fátima lying in bed for you on her splendorous, naked beauty. But I simply cannot see you jumping on her cold-turkey style. I rather see you running for the shelves checking what the authorities, since the ancient Greeks, have said about the multiple meanings and the different positions of performing the act, such as the missionary and the doggy positions. By the time you were finished at that, Sir, poor nurse Fátima most likely would have fallen asleep and your male member would have lost most, if not all, of its vigour".