Educated people

“ They tell us now that every one could be educated up to sixteen or seventeen and that most people may be kept learning and growing mentally all their lives, that no country in the. world has enough schools, or properly equipped schools, nor enough properly educated teachers in the schools we have. ”

“ What is a professional education but a liberal education taking a special direction?
Can it now be said, with any truth, that our nominally-educated young men go out into the world equipped with that general knowledge of the sciences of law and government, and political economy, with that knowledge of ethics and philosophy, with that acquaintance with modern history and of the condition of the world they live in, and with that real taste for modern literature, which should form the equipments of every man calling himself educated? ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am anxious to bring a quite successful educational experiment before the public at a moment when we are told on authority that “Education must be ... an appeal to the spirit if it is to be made interesting.” Here is Education which is as interesting and fascinating as a fine art to parents, children and teachers.
During the last thirty years thousands of children educated on these lines have grown up in love with Knowledge and manifesting a ‘right judgment in all things’ so far as a pretty wide curriculum gives them data. ”

“ All this will conduce to the practicability and efficacy of education. It will be an education to fit them for an education to be introduced with the progress of that fitness; intellectual culture finding a felicitous adaptation of the soil. We may then adopt with some confidence a public system, or stimulate and assist all independent local exertions for the instruction of the people in the rudiments of literature and general knowledge; and religion too, if you will. ”

“ Instead, his education will be obtained from studies that serve real purposes. Its content, spirit and aim will be realistic and genuine, not formal or traditional. Thus, the man educated in the modern sense will be trained to know, to care about and to understand the world he lives in, both the physical world and the social world. A firm grasp of the physical world means the capacity to note and to interpret phenomena; a firm grasp of the social world means a comprehension of and sympathy with current industry, current science and current politics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The social education which is most important of all has been incidental or omitted altogether. Public opinion needs to be educated to the point of understanding that all three types of training are imperatively needed. ”

“ And so, teaching goes like a beam of light through all parts of the people, from folk school and toddler school to university, offering all the knowledge and good practices worth more than silver and gold. ”

“ Education, more especially, is the instrument through which the young can be educated not only to ideals and customs already current, but to their reflective modification in the light of our ever-growing knowledge of the conditions of human welfare. ”

“ It provided very wisely for the development of elementary education, with the object of "conveying to the great mass of the people, who are utterly incapable of obtaining any education worthy of the name by their own unaided efforts, useful and practical knowledge, suited to every station in life." ”

“ The education of the future scholar for manhood will, therefore, as formerly, proceed in general simultaneously with the universal national education, and along with all the others he will attend the instruction it supplies. ”

“ In brief, you will have to carry on your own higher education at the same time that you are educating your children. Intellectually you must cultivate to good purpose that most complex of subjects—human nature and its laws, as exhibited in your children, in yourself, and in the world. ”

“ All the political changes of the age promote it, since they all tend [Pg 138] to raise the low and to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because education brings people under common influences, and gives them access to the general stock of facts and sentiments. ”

“ A university professor would lay out a liberal course of training for his son so as to prepare him for intellectual pursuits among scholars and people of culture. This utilitarian view, which points to success in life in the ordinary sense, is the prevailing one. We could probably sum up the wishes of a great majority of the common people by saying, "They desire to give their children, through education, a better chance in life than they themselves have had." ”

“ A universal education has opened the doors of colleges and universities and made it possible for those born in the humblest conditions of life, to attain to the most distinguished positions in the land. ”

“ Thus even if we imagine a perfect educational process, carried out by teachers who are all men and women of light and leading, the result of that process will be ultimately conditioned by the quality of the human beings who pass through it. Just as democracy pre-supposes education, so education pre-supposes children who are educable. ”

“ There, too, are the learned and philosophical societies, for the study of Science, Letters, and Art. Whence come the men of superior education who occupy the pulpits, exercise the professions of Law and Medicine, or fill the chairs of the Professors in the Colleges of the Union? ”

“ The education of each class in society has, or ought to have, its ideal, determined by the wants of that class, and by its destination. Society may be imagined so uniform that one education shall be suitable for all its members ”

“ Without education, they were ignorant of the world, and fearful of adventure. With education, we are conversant with its geography, history, and nations, and delight in its enterprises and responsibilities. ”

“ What I claim is liberal education; opportunity, that is, to have my share of whatever knowledge there is in the world according to my capacity or bent of mind, historical or scientific; and also to have my share of skill of hand which is about in the world, either in the industrial handicrafts or in the fine arts; picture-painting, sculpture, music, acting, or the like: I claim to be taught, if I can be taught, more than one craft to exercise for the benefit of the community. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Meantime, an immediately practical education is a necessity for all those whose formal education must be comparatively brief. At the best, few human beings have extraordinary intellectual powers. The great majority of men and women are dependent upon leaders. ”

“ An education, better in its processes, better in its substance, than that which was accessible to the great majority of well-to-do Britons a quarter of a century ago, is now obtainable by every child in the land. ”

“ Thus he gets his first lesson in the science of proportion. Children familiar with the great idea of a State in the sense, not of a government but of the people, learn readily enough about the laws, customs and government of their country; learn, too, with great interest something about themselves, mind and body, heart and soul, because they feel it is well to know what they have it in them to give to their country. ”

“ Teaching, however is found to be increasingly necessary, especially to examination, and for this the main field left open is in our last column, that of People. Their lore of the past, whether of sacred or classical learning, their history, literature, and criticism, are already actively promoted, or at any rate adequately endowed at older seats of learning ”

“ The citizen in a democracy should realize that his training and education are never completed, that life itself is the great school-master and that one of the chief pleasures of existence is continued study and investigation. ”

“ I propose, in what follows, to consider first the aims of education: the kind of individuals, and the kind of community, that we may reasonably hope to see produced by education applied to raw material of the present quality. ”

“ Hitherto your course has been shaped and your education directed by others; 'now you must think and act for yourselves, and realize the rules and principles you have been taught. You are able to appreciate in some degree the merits and defects of the culture you have received. Your knowledge of the laws of matter, force and mind, rudimentary though it may be at present, is yet sufficient to place you on the ladder of intellectual progress, and your own efforts well directed, will enable you to ascend. ”

“ One per cent. of the whole population makes a show of studying the elements of education. Why should they vex their souls in search of knowledge, when all that life needs can be had for the asking? Not, surely, to heap up wealth. ”

“ But to understand business on this plane, and to conduct it in this large way, needs a fine education, an education built, first of all, on a practical basis, such as the education of our common schools. Then should follow a course in the ideals of the race, the classic studies in language, literature, history, science, and philosophy. ”

“ Not a question have I ever heard in any school meeting of the necessity of educating every American child—at any cost. Think of it! Think how far we have come in that respect, in seventy—yes, fifty—years. Universal education has become a settled axiom of our life. ”

“ And looking attentively at this universal foundation on which our own human value is supported—call it language, logic, law,—we were led to study the relationship existing between individuality, which is the aim of all forms of education, and this universal spirit which here intervenes as it does in every moment of the human life. It intervenes in education, as the science and the conscience and the entire personality of the teacher. ”

“ Have these institutions succeeded in raising the general level of character and improving the general conditions of life? Can we indulge any sure and certain hope that the work of education will be increasingly fruitful? ”

“ Education, then, being only for the male children of citizens, and citizenship a degree to be attained to on the basis of education and training, let us next see in what that education consisted, and what were its most prominent characteristics and results. ”

“ But throughout the civilized world those responsible for the training of the young—teachers, parents and statesmen—are giving themselves with resolute purpose to the discovery and ordering of the best means of education, for all ages from infancy to maturity. ”

“ But I do want them directed by men and women who are thoroly acquainted with the subjects which they teach, and who know how to handle the same; but especially by men and women of broad, liberal culture, men and women whose lives have been enriched by the best there is in literature, history, art, science, and philosophy, and who know life, and are in warm sympathy with young life. Teachers thus equipt are able, from their high vantage point, to reach out here and there and take as educative material that which will contribute to the beautiful and strong development of each case at hand. ”

“ Finally, I shall discuss intellectual education, its aims, its curriculum, and its possibilities, from the first lessons in reading and writing to the end of the university years. The further education which men and women derive from life and the world I shall regard as lying outside my scope; but to make men and women capable of learning from experience should be one of the aims which early education should keep most prominently in view. ”

“ This process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture, is called Liberal Education ”

“ And thus one great result of the new form into which modern science is casting all our conceptions of education will be a vastly higher estimate of the educating value of those pursuits in life which are concerned with material things, and a distinct recognition of them as included among the liberal professions. It is interesting to observe how the list of liberal professions enlarges with the advance of civilization. ”

“ I speak of men who have had some advantages in the way of education. But as all are intensely eager to obtain these advantages, and as schools are now numerous, education to a certain extent is widely diffused. ”

“ And then, too, the educator is constantly engaged in the things of the mind, in study, and the discovery of new truths or new applications of old ones, and in imparting his knowledge to fresh, bright intelligences. ”