Klacel looked uncertain. "I don't know," he hesitated and looked at the two teachers, "none of your boys are geniuses like Mozart, and this is not an ordinary book. It is valuable original and it does not even belong to the Monastery."
Mendel took hold of the volume in both hands and held it against his chest. "Never the less, I would like to show my class the work of a true genius, tell them about all the great things he did in his life and all the wonderful music he wrote." He struggled to put his reasons into words.
"As Herr Makyatta said, my boys don't understand that hard work and study today will bring success later in life. That their school lessons are a foundation of knowledge they will build on as they grow. The problem is that the rewards are in the future, and the pain of learning is now. It will help them to see this example." He waved the book slightly.
"Mozart was a genius, that is true, but he also played musical instruments and wrote music for many hours a day; he practiced and practiced - nothing came easy. But with what results! This is the proof. When they go to Church on Easter Sunday and hear Prior Sembera's choir singing some of Mozart's music, my boys will have seen one of his scores and learned a bit about what it takes in life to accomplish great things."
Mendel's face glowed. A solid man from peasant stock, he was rarely roused to passion, but in matters of education and its value, he could be as passionate as Sembera was about his music. He remembered the free chamber concerts he had attended while a student himself at the Opava Gymnasium, and how the music had inspired him. After each concert he had tried to write poetry. Sitting in his shabby room he had scratched out his feelings on cheap paper, trying to match the intensity he felt for the music with an equal intensity of poetry, but with only modest success. At the time he had felt that he just didn't have the talent, but now, after many years, he could be honest with himself and admit he just hadn't tried hard enough. He had only played with the words and the lines of poetry; he had not worked at it. Here in his hands was proof that, had he only tried harder, he too could have written words as inspirational as Mozart's music.
Then his scientific training returned and he tried to put some of these ideas into words for Klacel and Makyatta. "For a person to become really good at something," he groped for the concept, "requires that two things come together. First, that person must receive the correct combination of genetic elements from his or her parents so that a talent may be born. I am convinced that all living things inherit these elements in a regular way, why not the abilities to write music or perform mathematical calculations?"
No one contradicted he so he continued. "But even with the gift of the right genetic elements success is not certain. Unless that person then takes these gifts and uses them daily they will just waste away and become as dust. All great achievements are mostly hard work, study and application. I want to show my boys this book, Mozart's score, and explain how it was the result of combining the gift of genetics and the sweat of hours of practice."