There was a time when you and I and all of us were all very close to God; so that even now the colour of a pebble (or a paint), the smell of a flower (or a firework), comes to our hearts with a kind of authority and certainty; as if they were fragments of a muddled message, or features of a forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole of life is the only real aim of education...I take this out of its context, where he is talking about female education in particular, to encourage you to go to the original. The passage ends with the famous motto: "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly".
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Purpose of education
At the end of Part Four of G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong with the World comes this wonderful quote, which is worth pondering:
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Wow, that last quote is really thought-provoking! I have yet to read G.K. Chesterton, but I can't wait 'til I do!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of a quote of Chesterton's I came across in Bartlett's Book of Famous Quotations:
ReplyDeleteThey haven't got no noses,
The fallen sons of Eve;
Even the smell of roses
Is not what they supposes;
But more than mind discloses
And more than men believe.