QUOTE : THE RIVER AND THE DEER The oldest book on education was written by a woman. Dhouda of Gascony wrote Liber Manualis, a manual for her son, in Latin at the beginning of the ninth century. She did not impose a thing. She suggested, she advised, she showed. One of the pages invites us to learn from deer that “ford wide rivers swimming in single file, one after the other, with the head and shoulders of each resting on the rump of the deer ahead; they support one another and thus are able to cross the river more easily. And they are so intelligent and clever that when they realize the one in the very front is tiring, they send him to the end of the line and another takes the lead.