“ Education is only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand? ”
G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World (1910). copy citation
| Author | G. K. Chesterton |
|---|---|
| Source | What's Wrong with the World |
| Topic | education truth |
| Date | 1910 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1717/1717-h/1717-h.htm |
Context
“Now I am concerned, first and last, to maintain that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the children; that at present we cannot save others, for we cannot save ourselves. We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education is only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand? Thus we find that education is of all the cases the clearest for our general purpose. It is vain to save children; for they cannot remain children. By hypothesis we are teaching them to be men; and how can it be so simple to teach an ideal manhood to others if it is so vain and hopeless to find one for ourselves?”
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