Richard Mitchell Attitudes Quotations

Literacy is not, as it is considered in our schools, a PORTION of education. It IS education. It is at once the ability AND the inclination of the mind to find knowledge, to pursue understanding, and out of knowledge and understanding, not out of received attitudes and values or emotional responses, however worthy, to make judgments.

There is only one Education, and it has only one goal: the freedom of the mind. Anything that needs an adjective, be it civics education, or socialist education, or Christian education, or whatever-you-like education, is not education, and it has some different goal. The very existence of modified educations is testimony to the fact that their proponents cannot bring about what they want in a mind that is free. An education that cannot do its work in a free mind, and so must teach by homily and precept in the service of these feelings and attitudes and beliefs rather than those, is pure and unmistakable tyranny.

There is only one Education, and it has only one goal: the freedom of the mind. Anything that needs an adjective, be it civics education, or socialist education, or Christian education, or whatever-you-like education, is not education, and it has some different goal. The very existence of modified educations is testimony to the fact that their proponents cannot bring about what they want in a mind that is free. An education that cannot do its work in a free mind, and so must teach by homily and precept in the service of these feelings and attitudes and beliefs rather than those, is pure and unmistakable tyranny.