The Olive Tree and the Scroll

In a sunlit village near Athens, a boy named Nikandros lived among olive groves. He hated school—his fingers longed for soil, not scrolls. Every morning, he trudged unwillingly behind his mother’s goat cart to the village tutor, a stern old man named Elpidios who believed in discipline more than praise.

Nikandros would stare longingly out the window as others recited Homer and calculated columns. One day, frustrated, he threw his ink pot and declared, “I learn nothing! I want to be free!”

Elpidios calmly walked him to the courtyard and pointed to a gnarled old olive tree. “This tree,” he said, “grew slowly, twisted and stubborn through drought and sun. But today, it feeds your village and burns in your lamps.”

Years passed. Nikandros dropped out, only to return to his tutor later, hungry for wisdom. He read everything—Plato, geometry, medicine. With time, his name crossed the Aegean. As a philosopher and healer, he was once invited to speak at the Temple of Apollo.

When a young student there asked him how he learned so much, Nikandros smiled and said, “I once tried to run from learning. But Elpidios taught me—education, like the olive tree, bears fruit only when rooted in patience.”

Moral:

True learning may come with hardship, but its rewards endure like ancient trees.

Inspiration:

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet." — Aristotle