Educated man

“ The interest theory, then, would not eliminate hardship or discipline, but, to my understanding, by making education serve actual life, would substitute a natural for an artificial and externally imposed hardship. Not hardship, but real achievement makes the educated man. ”

“ Being an educated man himself, he taught me everything it was necessary for one in my position to know, and selected my studies with so much good judgment, and instructed me with so much vigor and clearness, that I could not have learned more during a like number of years at school. ”

“ Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or ill-defined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about the bringing up of each person, we call one man educated and another uneducated, although the uneducated man may sometimes be very well educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship, and the like. ”

“ In learning it you train and discipline and cultivate your mind, making it grow both in strength and in capacity, and so the educated man has really a stronger and better intellect than he ever would have had without education. ”

“ Among the people I have met I have observed a lack of what I term full, broad education, producing a well-rounded mind, [Pg 207] which is rare except among the class that stands first in America—the refined, cultured, educated man of an old family, who is the product of many generations. ”

“ Science, history, philosophy, literature, must [43] no longer be the luxuries of the ‘educated’ classes; all classes must be educated and sit down to these things of the mind as they do to their daily bread. History must afford its pageants, science its wonders, literature its intimacies, philosophy its speculations, religion its assurances to every man, and his education must have prepared him for wanderings in these realms of gold. ”

“ Do you tell me that it is only granted to a few men to become scholars, and that you have been educated for some industrial pursuit? Remember, as I said before, that it is your special privilege to have been educated, to have added knowledge to your handicraft, and that this very knowledge, if kept alive so far as you are able, will ennoble your life. ”

“ So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing but the process of acquiring ideas or conceptions, the best educated mind being the mind which has the largest stock of them, ready to meet the largest possible variety of the emergencies of life. The lack of education means only the failure to have acquired them, and the consequent liability to be 'floored' and 'rattled' in the vicissitudes of experience. ”

“ Let us consider, first of all, how you may be of direct service by work in which the chief factor is personal influence and by work in which the chief factor is directing intelligence.
Teaching is an art inseparable from the personality of the teacher,—an art in which a mature person seeks by personal influence to help immature persons build their characters soundly. ”

“ While thus aiming at complete mastery over the one thing which is to be your chief work in life, you should also endeavour to counteract the prejudicial influence of a narrow line of thought by acquiring a sound general knowledge of the leading subjects of human interest. "A man of the highest education knows something of every thing and every thing of something." ”

“ If we are to work to good purpose we must take our stand, with the great thinkers and educators, on the broad field of man's nature, and act in the light of the only true ideal of education,—that its end is wisdom, virtue, knowledge, power, reverence, faith, health, behavior, hope, and love; in a word, whatever powers and capacities make for intelligence, for conduct, for character, for completeness of life. ”

“ These are the marks of educated persons; and when millions of men who should be the backbone of the country seem to be dead to public claims, we have to ask,—Why then are [2] not these persons educated, and what have we given them in lieu of education? ”

“ If we bend our thoughts to this subject, we shall gain insight into the meaning and purpose of education, which is nothing else than the urging of intellect and conscience to the conquest of the world, and to the clear perception and practical acknowledgment of the primal and fundamental truth that man is man in virtue of his thought and love.
Instruction, which is but part of education, has for its object the development of the intellect and the transmission of knowledge. This, whether we consider the individual or society, is indispensable. ”

“ We have the privilege of learning the arts and sciences that the learned among the Gentile nations understand; we have the privilege of becoming classical scholars—of commencing with the rudiments of all knowledge—of entering into the academies, we might say, of perfection. We might study, and add knowledge to knowledge, from the time that we are capable of knowing anything until we go down to the grave. If we enjoyed healthy bodies, so as not to wear upon the functions of the mind, there is no end to a man's learning. ”

“ The sun of education permeates all. Since this vast development of thought, this even and fruitful diffusion of light, we have scarcely any men of superiority, because every single man represents the whole education of his age. ”

“ Like all knowledge, these subjects have their worth not merely as means of developing human personality but also as means of equipping the student with such knowledge of facts, methods, and theories as will prove useful to him in his other studies and in the daily affairs of life. The teacher, the physician, the lawyer, the clergyman, the artist, the engineer, the business man, will be benefited by an understanding of the workings of the human mind, of the laws of human thinking, and of the principles of human conduct. ”

“ Knowledge and the sense of duty done bear in themselves their own reward; and you have in some sort reaped the fruits of others' toil dedicated for centuries to the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. The teachers under whom you have studied have been the interpreters between the world and you of what would else have been a mere confusion of tongues or a chaos of unrelated facts. ”

“ And education is turning its attention in a highly encouraging degree towards practical subjects and away from that incubus of the dead languages which was so strenuously insisted upon in the past. Man is going back to nature in education, observation is supplementing book knowledge, and experiment taking the place of authority. In short, education, with its handmaids, the book and the newspaper, is making its way into the humblest of homes, and man is everywhere fitting himself for an intelligent discharge of his social, industrial and political duties. ”

“ Education then, briefly, is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes men happiest in themselves, also makes them most serviceable to others. True education, then, has respect, first to the ends which are proposable to the man, or attainable by him ”

“ In the meantime, having brought out the true and vital energies of men as far as we go, if we are obliged to be specialists in knowledge we shall be specialists of the larger sort. The powers of each man, being actual and genuine powers, shall play into the powers of other men. Each man that essays to live shall create for us a splendour and beauty and strength he was made to create from the beginning of the world.
To those who sit in the seat of the scornful the somewhat lyrical idea of an examination in joy as a basis of admission to the typical college appeals as a fit subject of laughter. ”

“ Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. ”

“ I cannot too strongly impress upon you the fact that, with such a primary education as this, and with no more than is to be obtained by building strictly upon its lines, a man of ability may become a great writer or speaker, a statesman, a lawyer, a man of science, painter, sculptor, architect, or musician. That even development of all a man's faculties, which is what properly constitutes culture, may be effected by such an education, while it opens the way for the indefinite strengthening of any special capabilities with which he may be gifted. ”

“ Many of the most useful men who have at various periods of time figured upon the great theatre of human affairs, have ascended the ladder of fame without the aid of a collegiate education. A clear head, a strong mind, a matured judgment, and a good heart are the grand requisites to prepare a man for substantial usefulness. ”

“ My subject, however, does not demand that I consider these general and silent agencies by which life is influenced, but leads me to the discussion of the methods by which man, with conscious purpose, seeks to form and instruct his fellow-man; to the discussion of the special education which brings art to the aid of nature, and becomes the auxiliary and guide of the other forces which contribute to the development of our being. ”

“ This fact every student and every humble apprentice with limited advantages should bear in mind. It should infuse new life into the studies of the one, and inspire the other with a determination to imbue his mind with knowledge. The [Pg 120] education that a boy receives at colleges and seminaries does not make him a learned man. He has only acquired the rudiments of knowledge. ”

“ Such is the teaching more or less of the history of each individual man—whose means of education have been fairly good; and wisdom could hardly choose a better road along which to lead mankind. Is not the mass of the people even to this day in leading-strings?—much like our boy. ”

“ But when we calculate the number of those who take an interest in the subject of education, and those who do not, the above numbers will be reversed. Nine hundred and ninety-nine among the educated public will be found who take a real interest in the progress of education, for one who cares nothing about it. ”

“ Only in this way can there be on the part of the educator and of the one educated a genuine discovery of personal aptitudes so that the proper choice of a specialized pursuit in later life may be indicated. Moreover, the discovery of capacity and aptitude will be a constant process as long as growth continues. ”

“ The better educated have more and stronger attachments binding them to the place where they are. They are generally neater in their persons, dress, and houses; surrounded with more comforts, with fewer of 'the ills flesh is heir to.' In short, I have found the educated, as a class, more cheerful and contented, devoting a portion of their leisure time to reading and intellectual pursuits, more with their families, and less in scenes of dissipation. ”

“ The days have gone by when the education befitting either a gentleman or an artisan was our aim. Now we must deal with a child of man, who has a natural desire to know the history of his race and of his nation, what men thought in the past and are thinking now ”

“ To master it, so as to have a trustworthy opinion as to the relative value of studies and as to the best mode of pursuing them, and as to the organization of institutions devoted to the work of instruction, a man needs both learning and experience. ”

“ As that education is, in general, the best which forms 140 the man, in the best manner; so, in this confined view, that education must be thought the best, which forms the Englishman, in the best manner. ”

“ Has the mental training and discipline of your student life developed in you a love of knowledge for its own sake, irrespective of its utility in fitting you to pass examinations and thereby to enter upon the occupations you have chosen? Has the insight you have obtained into the several branches of knowledge, created in your hearts a reverence for learning, and a desire to add to your knowledge, day by day and year by year, and to expend your best energies in the pursuit of truth? ”

“ Looking back, forty years afterwards, on this episode, one asked oneself painfully what sort of a lesson a young man should have drawn for the purposes of his education, from this world-famous teaching of a very great master. ”

“ The school of life embodies a compulsory education that no man escapes. ”

“ Higher education has brought to man a quickened sense of the inherent nobility of his nature, and has changed his conceptions of the relations that exist between his own life and that which pulsates about him. ”

“ Shall we, then, not have some scholars, men learned in all that higher education gives? Of course; and we should have them. Men fitted by nature for special pursuits in life will make preparation for that work. ”

“ If it be argued that education does not make men delightful, in fact very much the contrary, I answer that that depends upon the education, and that, if genuine education doesn’t, nothing will; which is absurd. ”

“ "An educated Woggle-Bug may be a new thing; but a Woggle-Bug education is as old as the hills, judging from the display you make of it." ”

“ Shortly we shall have a new rule,—every school must educate every scholar in the three sorts of knowledge proper to him as a human being. What is knowledge? some one will say, and there is no pat, neatly-framed answer to be given; only this we can assert,—Knowledge is that which we know; and the learner knows only by a definite act of knowing which he performs for himself. ”

“ Now as the instruction of every art or science is founded upon the wisdom, experience, and maxims of the several great men that have laboured in it; so that right use of our reason, which young people should be called to by their education, is nothing but the best experience, and finest reasonings of men, that have devoted themselves to the improvement of human nature. ”