The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once had a discussion with a man who argued that children should not be given any religious training, but should be free to choose their own faith when they were old enough to decide for themselves. Coleridge later invited him into his garden. It seems our Mr Coleridge was a great poet but not a great gardener. “Do you call this a garden?” the visitor asked. “There are nothing but weeds here!”

“Well, you see,” Coleridge replied, “I did not wish to infringe upon the liberty of the garden in any way. I was just giving the garden a chance to express itself.”

Source: Reported in Daily Walk, March 28, 1992