Friday, October 7, 2011

GK Chesterton on Education


'We come back to the parent as the person in charge of education. If you exalt the education, you must exalt the parental power with it. If you exaggerate the education, you must exaggerate the parental power with it. If you depreciate the parental power, you must depreciate education with it. … Private education really is universal. … Public education can be comparatively narrow. 
'It would really be an exaggeration to say that the school-master who takes his pupils in freehand drawing is training them in all the uses of freedom. It really would be fantastic to say that the harmless foreigner who instructs a class in French or German is talking with all the tongues of men and angels. 
'But the mother dealing with her own daughters in her own home does literally have to deal with all forms of freedom, because she has to deal with all sides of a single human soul. She is obliged, if not to talk with the tongues of men and angels, at least to decide how much she shall talk about angels and how much about men.' 

3 comments:

Olivia said...

I like this Camille. It really is so true!

abbykautt said...

Amen!

Have you read John Taylor Gatto's wonderful book Dumbing Us Down? I think you would find it refreshing.

Blessings!

Briana Mahoney said...

Those are great quotes. I have been reading Chesterton's "What's Wrong With the World" this week. I agree with him about the dogmatic nature of education. The ideals, values, and even the manner of an educator are absorbed by the unformed mind of a child. It is the realization of this fact that has motivated our parents to take the responsibility for our education. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." If we don't train our children, someone else will, and our posterity will reflect that teaching. At the end of it all, will we be able to stand before God and declare that we have discharged faithfully the sacred trust of training our children?