Education
Outline · 2 ›
1.The nature, aim and power of education
Michel de Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of ChildrenVol. 32
- p. 29Rearing young children is the greatest difficulty of all human knowledge; their inclinations are uncertain and naturally ill-suited to forced instruction.read · scan
Thomas De Quincey, Levana and Our Ladies of SorrowVol. 27
- p. 319Levana presides over education understood as educing powers through passion, strife and temptation, not spelling-books and grammars.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 157The doctrine appears in thought on education and culture spread by Pestalozzi.read · scan
1a.The power of early habit and upbringing in forming character
Confucius, The Sayings of ConfuciusVol. 44
- p. 57Habit and life shape men differently from a common nature.read · scan
Aesop, FablesVol. 17
- p. 28Parental failure to correct a child forms his character for crime.read · scan
Buddhist WritingsVol. 45
- p. 682–683Training and medicaments applied to a young body show their fruit in the mature body.read · scan
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Old AgeVol. 9
- p. 68Faults are softened by good character and good education.read · scan
Plutarch, AntonyVol. 12
- p. 322Antony is brought up by Julia, corrupted by Curio, then studies eloquence and military exercises in Greece.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 151Asks whether the man ever examined his principles as boy or youth.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 142Youth brought up viciously and idly are infected with vice from tender age.read · scan
- p. 191Children outgrow jewels of their own shamefacedness, as ours discard nuts and puppets, without parental bidding.read · scan
- p. 215Virtuous opinions taught from childhood by learning and laws increase manful courage.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 98Custom is most perfect when begun in youth; this is education, an early custom.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Proœmium, Epistle Dedicatory, Preface, and Plan of the Instauratio MagnaVol. 39
- p. 139Nurses' fables and superstitions injure children's minds, as vanity would injure philosophy's infancy.read · scan
Philip Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old DebtsVol. 47
- p. 867–868Young Allworth as blank parchment to be inscribed; war described as a school of honour.read · scan
René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the SciencesVol. 34
- p. 12–13Childhood governed by desires and preceptors makes our judgments less sound than if reason were mature at birth.read · scan
- p. 15–16Upbringing in France or among Chinese would shape the same mind differently.read · scan
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Life Is a DreamVol. 26
- p. 45The King says confinement taught his son to live and rule himself; Segismund replies it spoiled him.read · scan
- p. 71Basilio's confinement stunted Segismund's better nature; he speaks of wearing the teacher's gown.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 12Understanding and feelings are moulded or corrupted by intercourse; good society improves them, yet choosing requires already improved judgment.read · scan
- p. 41–42Education produces natural intuitions and erases them; praise heard in childhood steers our callings.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 27Ill habits learned young are hard to mend later; early indulgence poisons the fountain.read · scan
- p. 29–30Parental instruction in pride and dishonesty forms bad character early.read · scan
- p. 34Virtue must be put into a child betimes as habits, not a counterfeit outward carriage produced by fear.read · scan
- p. 45Affectation is the proper fault of a perverted education, arising from management and instruction misapplied.read · scan
- p. 46–47Affectation is an acquired ugliness from mistaken education; governors should watch for it and make pupils repeat actions.read · scan
- p. 85These humours must be weeded out early with contrary habits to found a good man.read · scan
- p. 91Teach children liberality by experience and commendation so that good nature becomes habit.read · scan
- p. 126Locke says education should check loud wrangling and interruption in young people; barbarous disputing among the civilized stems from neglected upbringing.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 364Allowance is due to education and weaknesses.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 69–70Youth is when habits and character are formed, so life should begin well; a wise man's example helps others become wise.read · scan
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingVol. 37
- p. 355–356Custom and education mould the human mind from infancy into a fixed character.read · scan
- p. 371–372Discipline and education with rewards and punishments teach animals actions contrary to natural instincts.read · scan
- p. 374Education is a source of bias in understanding.read · scan
John Woolman, The Journal of John WoolmanVol. 1
- p. 210–211Counsel to young people about company and example.read · scan
- p. 232–233Keep young minds from corruption and teach them the uncertainty of temporal things.read · scan
- p. 295Corrupting examples work upon the young generation.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 131Children's ductile minds take on love or abhorrence from a nurse's approval or displeasure at words.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 334–335A dauphin educated to conform to his diminished situation will have no education; knowing his ancestors were kings he will seek vengeance.read · scan
William Wordsworth, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 597The child learns by endless imitation, and custom weighs upon him like frost.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 337–338Wants to copy the training, food, nursing and schooling that produced robust wisdom.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 86His father's education had been conducted without regard to its ending in such mental crisis.read · scan
- p. 103Convictions about right and wrong should be engraved on feeling by early education.read · scan
- p. 156Education impresses a dominant creed on new generations without the mental processes behind it.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 154Method of training the puppy: separated from its kind, suckled by an ewe, so it adopts the flock.read · scan
1b.Education as the source of differences among men
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 352Differences of passion, and so of wit, come partly from bodily constitution and partly from education and custom.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 163–164Tales suited to speakers' differing educations and callings.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 9–10Nine in ten men are good or evil, useful or not, by education; early impressions on infancy direct the whole course of life.read · scan
- p. 26–27Men's manners and abilities owe more to education than anything else, so the mind must be formed early.read · scan
Daniel Defoe, The Education of WomenVol. 27
- p. 150–151Shows how lack of breeding corrupts a woman's temper and wit, while education makes her a peerless companion; difference between people lies in education.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality among MankindVol. 34
- p. 193–194Lacking education, inventions died with their inventors.read · scan
- p. 194Education increases differences among minds in proportion to culture, as a giant gains on a dwarf.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 20–21Education and occupation, not nature, widen initially similar children into dissimilar talents.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 316Education is listed among sources of diversity among men.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 69–70Father held character is formed by circumstances through association, so education can unlimitedly improve mankind's moral and intellectual condition.read · scan
- p. 143Education, habit and cultivation of sentiment can make men labour for the common good as readily as fight for country.read · scan
- p. 169Ascribing character to innate causes hinders rational social questions and human improvement; circumstances shape people.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 141–142Nicholas respects Dana's education, which helps their footing against the officer.read · scan
- p. 199George Marsh's good education and manners set him apart, though he has done nothing with it, unlike self-made Harris.read · scan
Hippolyte Taine, Introduction to the History of English LiteratureVol. 39
- p. 423Historical pressures are to nations what education and condition are to individuals.read · scan
1c.The controversy over nature versus education
See also: Nature 6a
Confucius, The Sayings of ConfuciusVol. 44
- p. 22–23Confucius claims no innate understanding; he loved the past and questioned it, and learns from any three walking together.read · scan
Hippocrates, The Law of HippocratesVol. 38
- p. 4Requires natural talent, early instruction, diligence and leisure; teaching compared to sowing seed in soil.read · scan
Plutarch, ThemistoclesVol. 12
- p. 5Young Themistocles neglected graceful accomplishments but attended to instruction in sagacity and affairs; teacher predicts greatness for good or bad.read · scan
- p. 6–7Natural character without reason and instruction runs to extremes; the wildest colts make the best horses if trained.read · scan
Plutarch, CoriolanusVol. 12
- p. 147–148Good nature without discipline is like rich soil uncultivated; education and the muses teach passions to submit to reason and avoid extremes.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, PurgatoryVol. 20
- p. 268Good natural gifts need cultivation; uncultured rich soil runs to wildness.read · scan
Traditional BalladsVol. 40
- p. 120–122Bewick's father claims his son reads and writes, while Grahame's son refused schooling and books.read · scan
- p. 122–123Fathers contrast sons: Bewick can read and write while Grahame's son refused school and books, so must prove himself by the sword.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 399–410Prospero says he took pains teaching Caliban, but his vile nature would not take any print of goodness.read · scan
- p. 449–450Prospero laments that Caliban is a born devil on whom nurture cannot stick and pains taken humanely are lost.read · scan
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Life Is a DreamVol. 26
- p. 23Keepers instruct the prisoner's soul in holy faith and lore to tame the prophesied savage.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 311Natural virtue is preferred to the inoculation and forced grafts of education.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 38Schooling may have perverted common sense, or corrected illusion.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 227–228Disputes whether Shakespeare owed excellence to native force or scholastic education; Jonson says small Latin and no Greek.read · scan
- p. 228–229Johnson weighs Shakespeare's Latin and modern languages, concluding he read chiefly English and translated tales.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Introduction to the PropyläenVol. 39
- p. 264–265Artists' general education is neglected compared with others who learn from society and business; they should pursue what is contrary to their nature.read · scan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for ScandalVol. 18
- p. 127–128Sir Oliver plans a trial of his nephews' characters.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter ScottVol. 25
- p. 409–410Wise education unfolds nature's gifts; lame boy learns to think through ballads and history from his mother.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American ScholarVol. 5
- p. 14–15Great creators come from untutored savage nature rather than from those exhausted by systems of education.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CharacterVol. 5
- p. 191–192Gifted young persons owe their charm to non-conformity and not listening to conventional teaching; character is not made by imitation or by outside hands.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, WorshipVol. 5
- p. 279The order of the world educates the senses and understanding first, but great natures escape religious training.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 346–347The Quill Pen remarks that the nightingale has had no education.read · scan
Henry David Thoreau, WalkingVol. 28
- p. 411–412A town with primitive forests raises poets and philosophers; Homer and Confucius grew in such soil.read · scan
- p. 416True culture does not tame tigers or make sheep ferocious; taming natures to one level is criticized.read · scan
- p. 417–418Precocious social culture stunts growth; child needs wild, tawny grammar and the soil of nature rather than more late study.read · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 188–189Milton argues civil virtues need solid breeding and imported learning from ancient examples; native mother-wit is not enough.read · scan
1d.The ends of education: virtue, wisdom, worldly station or piety
Confucius, The Sayings of ConfuciusVol. 44
- p. 5–6True learning is shown by conduct and worth; frivolity makes learning unsound.read · scan
- p. 19Read to become a gentleman, not as the vulgar do.read · scan
- p. 48Men of old learned for themselves; men of today learn for show.read · scan
Plato, PhaedoVol. 2
- p. 102–103The soul takes with it to the other world only nurture and education, which greatly help or harm it.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 140As carpenters and pilots learn their crafts, wisdom and goodness must be learned, not merely desired.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 234The value of teaching youth lies in the end it aims at; seek nothing else.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 23His friends cared only that he learn to speak well and be a persuasive orator.read · scan
- p. 23–24Parents valued copious speech and learning over growth toward God.read · scan
- p. 139His teaching of rhetoric to the young is renounced as serving lying dotages.read · scan
William Caxton, Prefaces and EpiloguesVol. 39
- p. 8–9'All that is written is written to our doctrine' - writings serve instruction for the common weal.read · scan
Nicolaus Copernicus, Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly BodiesVol. 39
- p. 53Friends urge him to publish for the common benefit of students after nearly thirty-six years.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of ChildrenVol. 32
- p. 45–47The scope of study is to know what to know and how to live.read · scan
William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan EnglandVol. 35
- p. 224–225Yeomen send sons to schools, universities and Inns of Court to raise them to gentlemen.read · scan
- p. 269The best wits abandon Scripture study for medicine and law, fearing they will not earn a livingread · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 373He weighs the scholar's labours against the soldier's, comparing learning with arms.read · scan
- p. 377–378Learning's costs of time, watchings and hunger are weighed against the soldier's.read · scan
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 22Moving desire to learn is both cause and effect of teaching; the fruit of moral teaching must be action.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 399Prospero devoted himself to the liberal arts and bettering his mind in retirement, neglecting worldly ends.read · scan
John Milton, Tractate on EducationVol. 3
- p. 236The end of learning is to repair our first parents' ruin by knowing God and imitating him through virtue and faith.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 5Locke presents his thoughts on education, written as private letters to a friend and published because their general usefulness to the country was urged on him.read · scan
- p. 6–7Education should produce virtuous, useful, able men; if gentlemen are educated rightly they will bring the rest into order.read · scan
- p. 119Prepare children for wisdom by true notions, great thoughts, truthfulness, submission to reason and reflection on their actions.read · scan
- p. 127Learning is the least part of education; company matters most, and parents wrongly spend years on Latin and Greek.read · scan
William Penn, More Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 372–373Author aims at general benefit especially to youth.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 140Professions requiring cultivated minds produce abler scholars; study of Greece and Rome leads to polite literature.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Profession of Faith of a Savoyard VicarVol. 34
- p. 239His schooling aimed only at ordination, not at what was good, true, or useful.read · scan
- p. 277–278Men should study what they need to know before vices are acquired, seeking wisdom not display.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 107Long, costly education combined with trust raises the price of professional labour.read · scan
- p. 217–219Acquired talents cost real expense in education or apprenticeship, a capital realized in the person that repays with profit.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 46–47Elevation of the mind ought to be the principal end of all studies.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 179–180Education and habits enlarge and liberalize the understanding needed for public officeread · scan
William Ellery Channing, On the Elevation of the Laboring ClassesVol. 28
- p. 333–334Awakening great ideas is education's highest office; mass education gives mechanical habits and traditions instead of rational culture.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Inaugural Address at EdinburghVol. 25
- p. 376Doubts that universities do more than cultivate specific arts; education should teach obedience, modesty, humility and moral conduct.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American ScholarVol. 5
- p. 22The scholar must take up all the ability of the time into himself, be a university of knowledges.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, HeroismVol. 5
- p. 123–124Culture must include arming the man for struggle.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, WorshipVol. 5
- p. 278Direction of education shows skepticism; a highly cultured man's accidental death is thought fitting.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 232Culture without freedom gives an elite mental training but never a large, liberal mind.read · scan
- p. 271Education should cultivate both self-regarding and social virtues, working by conviction and persuasion rather than compulsion.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 93Ruskin introduces his subject as reading and the spread of education, with letters from parents about schooling.read · scan
- p. 93–94Parents seek education only to secure a station in life, not an education good in itself that is itself advancement.read · scan
- p. 135Education and reading are to be used rightly by knowing what they lead to: moral power over the ill-guided.read · scan
1e.Culture of feeling and the aesthetic education of man
See also: Liberty 1d · Beauty 9a · Art 10a
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 177–179The Muse guided and taught the young poet's early ways and manners-painting strains.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 215–216Education is deficient if moral feeling is maintained by sacrificing what is natural.read · scan
- p. 216–217The educating artist shapes man with respect for his personality, not as a deceptive effect.read · scan
- p. 227Reform of the state requires first forming the inner man's character and harmony.read · scan
- p. 229–230The most pressing need is to educate sensibility, since the road to the head passes through the heart.read · scan
- p. 233Advice to the young lover of truth: raise minds toward the eternal, give truth beautiful form, and work for what men need.read · scan
- p. 233–234Asks how the fine arts can accomplish the education of man by curing opposite defects.read · scan
- p. 244Culture must guard both impulsions within limits, cultivating sensibility and reason, so man absorbs the world into the unity of reason.read · scan
- p. 250–251The objection is raised that beauty, regarded as an instrument of culture, is degraded by being called mere play.read · scan
- p. 253Physical and moral education unify multiplicity; aesthetic education makes the beautiful out of beauties.read · scan
- p. 266–267Aesthetic culture does not form character or instruct but makes self-formation possible.read · scan
- p. 271The only way to make a reasonable being of a sensuous man is first to make him aesthetic.read · scan
- p. 272Moving from aesthetic to moral state is far easier than from physical to aesthetic; the sensuous man must first be changed.read · scan
- p. 273–274A chief task of culture is to submit even physical life to form and beauty, since the moral state develops only from the aesthetic.read · scan
- p. 274–275Aesthetic culture prepares man for moral life by shaping inclinations under the laws of the beautiful before reason must combat them.read · scan
- p. 276Culture must combine dignity and happiness in purity of both principles.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Prefaces to Various Volumes of PoemsVol. 39
- p. 289Taste, as Reynolds says, is acquired through thought and long intercourse with the best models.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 331The poet must humble, humanize, purify and exalt readers, forming their sensibility.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 40Continental culture of understanding reaches uneducated classes through exercise of feeling.read · scan
- p. 87Mill questions his father's associationist education relying on praise, blame, reward and punishment to form salutary associations, which are artificial.read · scan
- p. 87His education failed to create sympathetic feelings strong enough to resist analysis.read · scan
- p. 90–91Mill gives the internal culture of the individual its place among prime necessities of well-being, beyond training for speculation and action.read · scan
- p. 91–92Intellectual culture and analysis must be joined with cultivation of feelings for individual and social improvement.read · scan
- p. 94–95Poetic cultivation is needed by unpoetical natures, forming character.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1278–1280Children's caresses and gladness are worth more than the wisdom of booksread · scan
John Greenleaf Whittier, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1354–1355Blessing on childhood, remembered from the poet's own boyhood.read · scan
Outline · 2 ›