quotations about education
I say that our system of tests and grades, as it now exists, is one source of the low yield of great men from our universities. The marking system is a traumatic experience from which most students emerge with a deep determination never to get into a situation where they can be marked again. They just won't ever again take a chance.
EDWIN H. LAND
address at MIT, "Generation of Greatness: The Idea of a University in an Age of Science", May 22, 1957
The enthusiastic advocate of what is new in educational ideas--as to subjects, methods, curricula, organization, etc.--regards it as highly unfortunate that institutions are not so plastic, so easy to change, as are ideas. The man who is wise in practical affairs, and profound in his reflections upon the truths of history, knows that, on the contrary, this abiding and relatively stable character of the institutional expression of ideas is the fortunate thing about educational, as about other forms of progress. Most fortunate of all are those institutions which change just fast and far enough to conserve the priceless lessons of the past, while unfolding constantly to receive the suggestions of the better time coming.
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
preface, Essays on the Higher Education
I consider that it is on instruction and education, that the future security and direction of the destiny of every nation chiefly and fundamentally rests.
LAJOS KOSSUTH
The Future of Nations
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. If we retrench the wages of the schoolmaster, we must raise those of the recruiting sergeant.
EDWARD EVERETT
Public Documents of Massachusetts, 1868
Each nature requires its own education. The training which will help the man of undue self-esteem, will hurt the man who has too little. A chief end of life is to grow aright; and no man can grow aright.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Apart from any other basis which might justify a superiority, education, as a power, raised him who possessed it over the weak, who lacked it, and the educated man counted in his circle, however large or small it was, as the mighty, the powerful, the imposing one: for he was an authority.
MAX STIRNER
The False Principle of Our Education
True men are not supplied by school; if they are nevertheless there, they are there in spite of school.
MAX STIRNER
The False Principle of Our Education
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
C. S. LEWIS
attributed, Christianity & Culture
Education is so much of an organic unity that, if any of the stages or elements of it be defective, the deficiency is felt throughout all the subsequent growth of the organism.
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
Essays on the Higher Education
To develop in each individual all the perfection of which he is susceptible, is the object of education.
IMMANUEL KANT
attributed, American Education: Its Principles and Elements
Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.
JOHN ADAMS
Thoughts on Government
Do you ask, then, what will educate your son? Your example will educate him.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
Atoms of Thought
Education is one of those subjects which, from their very nature, do not admit of a very close approach to demonstrative argument. Neither from history, nor from our knowledge of nature and of the human soul, nor from the study of the details of experience in the past, can we construct a science--strictly speaking--of education. Pedagogics will probably never hold a place among the exact sciences. We may, however, form comprehensive and defensible opinions on this subject; and these opinions will be the more entitled to respect and acceptance, as the mind holding them is itself genial and truly liberal, and is also acquainted with the truths of history, of nature, and especially of the human soul.
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
Essays on the Higher Education
All education has this provisional quality. In school, as well as in dreams, we learn in childhood a great deal that finds no immediate use or expression. For many years we may scarcely remember the lesson, then comes the occasion for it, and the information needed is suddenly restored.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
Getting an education by itself, of course, does not guarantee financial success. There must, after all, be an increase in demand for educated labor to match the increase in supply.
FRANK LEVY
The Economic Future of American Families: Income and Wealth Trends
College mostly makes people like bladders--just good for nothing but t'hold the stuff as is poured into 'em.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Collected Works of G. K. CHESTERTON
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the Scriptures, and other works both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech delivered as candidate for the state legislature, March 9, 1832
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams