Futility Closet

Polish educator Janusz Korczak set out to remake the world just as it was falling apart. In the 1930s his Warsaw orphanage was an enlightened society run by the children themselves, but he struggled to keep that ideal alive as Europe descended into darkness. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the children's champion and his sacrifices for the orphans he loved. We'll also visit an incoherent space station and puzzle over why one woman needs two cars. Intro: Elbert Hubbard and his wife decided on a final gesture aboard the sinking Lusitania. E.E. Cummings dedicated his 1935 collection of poetry to the 14 publishing houses that rejected it. Sources for our story on Janusz Korczak: Betty Jean Lifton, The King of Children, 1988. Adir Cohen, The Gate of Light, 1994. E.P. Kulawiec, ed., The Warsaw Ghetto Memoirs of Janusz Korczak, 1979. Marc Silverman, A Pedagogy of Humanist Moral Education: The Educational Thought of Janusz Korczak, 2017. Susan J. Berger, "The Children's