Sunday, April 28, 2013

Education

It is not a stage of excellence in one of these crafts, but rather a sense of the existence of all of them, that is the true ground-work of education. In that sense it is idle to talk of a smattering of culture; for culture is a smattering, and must be a smattering, and ought to be a smattering. It ought to be a rough general grasp of the realities of human experience, and their different relations to each other. In that sense education cannot be knowing things; it can only be knowing of them. A man cannot know all there is to be known about either hawking or harping. But he can know a hawk from a hand-saw; and, similarly, a hawk from a harp. In short, he can know the general nature of a thousand things of which he cannot possibly know the thousand details. He can realise the existence of studies other than his own. He can know of the things he cannot know.

-November 6, 1920, Illustrated London News

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