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
Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim, rather than to learn.
SPIRO AGNEW
speech in Houston, May 22, 1970
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
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
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education".... Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual -- a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis ... deals a severe blow to education across the board.... We need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation’s historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.
PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, Oct. 8, 2009
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
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
Atoms of Thought
College mostly makes people like bladders--just good for nothing but t'hold the stuff as is poured into 'em.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
The founding fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with torture called education.
JOHN UPDIKE
The Centaur
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 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
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
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
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
Do you ask, then, what will educate your son? Your example will educate him.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales
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
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
Tell me one more time, people now
What do you say?
Without an education
You might as well be dead
JAMES BROWN
"Don't Be a Dropout"
Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
All State education is a sort of dynamo machine for polarizing the popular mind; for turning and holding its lines of force in the direction supposed to be most effective for State purposes.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams