There is a wise proverb that warns us that “however soon we get up in the morning the sunrise comes never the earlier.” A vast amount of instruction is thrown away because the instructors will not wait for the day-break.
— Robert Quick (1868), English educationist, author of Essays on Educational Reformers
Efficiency is largely a virtue for the tasks we don't like to do; few of us like to eat a great meal efficiently or to participate in a wonderful conversation efficiently, or indeed to make love efficiently. What we enjoy the most we linger over.
A school system designed with an overriding commitment to efficiency may produce outcomes that have little enduring quality.
— Elliot Eisner (2002), professor of Art and Education, educationist, reformer, author of The Arts and the Creation of Mind
The history of education is a seemingly endless parade of “new ideas” that are actually old ideas renamed.
— attributed to Diane Ravitch, contemporary American educational historian, policy analyst, educator, activist, author
Fundamentally, there is, I believe, no discrepancy, no inconsistency, between the scientific spirit in education and what may be called the philosophical spirit.
As I have suggested, there are always two dangers that must be avoided: the danger, in the first place, of thinking of the old as essentially bad; and, on the other hand, the danger of thinking of the new and strange and unknown as essentially bad;
the danger of confusing a sound conservatism with a blind worship of established custom; and the danger of confusing a sound radicalism with the blind worship of the new and the bizarre.
Now many of the advocates of the first point of view…are animated by the spirit of change and unrest which dominates our latter-day civilization. They wish to follow the popular demand.
"Down with scholasticism!" is their cry; "Down with this blind worship of custom and tradition!
Let us do the thing that gives the greatest immediate benefit to our pupils. Let us discard the elements in our courses that are hard and dry and barren of practical results."
Now these men, I believe, are basing their argument upon the fallacy of immediate expediency. The old is bad, the new is good. That is their argument.
Many of the advocates of the second point of view—many of the people who hold to the old line, pure-science teaching—are, on the other hand, animated by a spirit of irrational conservatism.
"Down with radicalism!" they shout; "Down with the innovators!
Things that are hard and dry are good mental discipline. They made our fathers strong. They can make our children strong. What was good enough for the great minds of the past is good enough for us.
Now these men, I believe, have gone to the other extreme. They have confused custom and tradition with fundamental and eternal principles.
They have thought that, just because a thing is old, it is good, just as their antagonists have thought that just because a thing is new it is good.
In both cases, obviously, the scientific spirit is lacking. The most fundamental of all principles is the principle of truth.
— William Chandler Bagley (1911), American educator, editor, author (Craftsmanship in Teaching)
In my view, all our intellectual activity, in whatever field it takes place, is an attempt to give a meaning to our experience — that is, to make life more practicable; for by understanding things we make it easier to survive and get around among them.
— Edmund Wilson (1941), American journalist, author, literary critic
The following reasons will establish that not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.
— John Amos Comenius (1657), influential Czech educator, philosopher, one of the founding fathers of modern education, author of The Great Didactic
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road.
The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away."
To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense.
The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street.
Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable.
… nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served.
But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1929), English author, philosopher, critic
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
— Douglas Adams (1991), English author, humorist, script writer
Care rather for their seeing a few things vividly and definitely, than that they should get filled with hazy and confusing notions of many things.
— attributed to Francesco Sacchini (1570 - 1625), Italian Jesuit pedagogue, rhetorician, historian
I allude to the principle that education must involve a period of estrangement from the common and familiar. The pupil must be led out of his immediateness and separated in spirit from his naturalness, in order that he may be able to return from his self-estrangement to the world that lies nearest to him and consciously seize and master it.
Without such self-alienation that which lies nearest to man and deepest in his nature does not become objective to him at all, but remains merely instinctive and implicit.
— William Torrey Harris (1902), American educator and educational philosopher, US Commissioner of Education, Committee of Ten member
More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with half-packed luggage.
“You seem to be off on your travels,” he said. “Where are you going?”
With a strap between my teeth I replied, “To Battersea.”
“The wit of your remark,” he said, “wholly escapes me.”
“I am going to Battersea,” I repeated, “to Battersea viâ Paris, Belfort, Heidelberg, and Frankfort.
“I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you,” said my friend, with an air of intellectual comparison, “that this is Battersea?”
“It is quite unnecessary,” I said…
“Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking Battersea.
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.
Now I warn you that…if you utter that word ‘paradox’ I shall hurl it at your head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical.
It is not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to go away from it.”
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1909), English author, journalist, philosopher, critic
Students often receive the body of education without the soul. Mere formalism may be a curse instead of a blessing…Ideas which reveal the true meaning of the subject must be imparted.
— James H. Baker (1892), American academic administrator, Committee of Ten member, author
The whole point of higher education is to mess things up and challenge basic assumptions about how you look at the world and fit into it. If you don't allow your education to challenge those assumptions, there's no point in it."
— Edward Burger (2010), contemporary American mathematician, educator, popularizer of mathematics
What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.
— John Dewey (1899), influential American philosopher, educational theorist, educational reformer, author