Horton As Moral Formation

Margaret and I have often exchanged poignant observations about the assumptions on parenting that inform Dr. Suess’s classic Horton Hatches the Egg.

On the other hand, I realized again this morning how powerfully the book’s moral catch-phrase had affected me over the years from when I used to read Horton frequently.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant
An elephant’s word is one-hundred percent

The web instructs me that there’s a citation problem here; the “elephant’s word” version of the saying is the one that sticks in my head, but that’s from Horton Hears a Who, which was not a central text in my growing-up library. Hatches seems to conclude the couplet, “An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent” (which also suits me, though it’s not the phrase that resonates as vividly in my conscience and my hermeneutics).