What is the goal of education? What are the hallmarks of a specifically Christian education? And what, in its essence, is education?
Today we present eight quotes spanning nearly 2500 years that speak to these questions. Their authors come from all over the map—literally and figuratively—and all across the timeline, from Greek philosophers to medieval theologians, from an Old English king right up to an early 20th-century educational theorist.
Taken together, these quotes suggest some compelling answers to the questions posed above. One can almost hear the authors discussing ideas of education together, partaking in a conversation transcending languages and ages.
δεῖ δέ που τελευτᾶν τὰ μουσικὰ εἰς τὰ τοῦ καλοῦ ἐρωτικά.
The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.
Plato (428-348 BC), The Republic
οὐ γὰρ ὡς ἀγγεῖον ὁ νοῦς ἀποπληρώσεως ἀλλ᾽ ὑπεκκαύματος μόνον ὥσπερ ὕλη δεῖται
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch (46-119 AD), On Listening to Lectures
Dicit mihi homo: Intellegam ut credam. Respondeo: Crede ut intellegas.
A man says to me: I must understand in order to believe. I respond: Believe in order to understand.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), Sermo 43
Ure ieldran lufodon wisdom ond ðurh ðone begeaton welan ond us læfdon. Her mon mæg giet gesion hiora swæð.
Our forefathers loved wisdom, and through it they acquired riches which they bequeathed to us. Here one can yet see their path.
Alfred the Great (849-899 AD)
Preface to his translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care
Quid es, Domine, quid es, quid te intelliget cor meum? Certe vita es, sapientia es, veritas es, bonitas es, beatitudo es, aeternitas es, et omne verum bonum es.
What are you, Lord, what are you, what shall my heart understand you to be? Truly you are life, wisdom, truth, goodness, blessedness, eternity, and you are all true good.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109 AD), Proslogion
The end then of Learning is to repair the ruines of our first Parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him as we may the neerest by possessing our souls of true virtue . . .
John Milton (1608- 1674 AD), On Education
Wherein lies happiness? in that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with essence; till we shine,
Full alchemized and free of space.
John Keats (1795-1821 AD), Endymion
But we hold that all education is divine, that every good gift of knowledge and insight comes from above, that the Lord the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind, and that the culmination of all education . . . is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection.
Charlotte Mason (1842-1923 AD), School Education