There are great possibilities in this metaphor. I think I like it and will use it regularly.
We are to regard the mind not as a piece of iron to be laid upon the anvil and hammered into any shape, nor as a block of marble in which we are to find the statute by removing the rubbish, nor as a receptacle into which knowledge may be poured; but as a flame that is to be fed, as an active being that must be strengthened to think and feel–to dare, to do, and to suffer.
– Mark Hopkins, Induction address as president of Williams College, 1836.
Found at Heroes Not Zombies.
Irony is found in the previous post being “First Snow.”