Category Archives: Learning

How Students Deceive Themselves

“For the first step in learning is the capacity to doubt, nor is there anything so inimical to learning as the presumption of one’s own erudition or excessive reliance upon one’s own wits: the one takes away our interest in … Continue reading

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John Locke on the Study of History

“With Geography, Chronology ought to go hand in hand.  I mean that general part of it, so that he may have in his Mind a view of the whole current of time, and the several considerable Epochs that are made … Continue reading

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Studies Burdensome to Youth

One may wish to be learned in old age, but it is not easy to achieve this unless we have nurtured learning in ourselves from our earliest years with zealous effort.  So we need to prepare in youth those consolations … Continue reading

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Unlock the Hidden Places of Learning

“A certain wise man, when asked concerning the method and form of study, declared: A humble mind, eagerness to inquire, a quiet life,                                   … Continue reading

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Luther on Pride of Students

“We have many students here who are so full of knowledge after they have been in Wittenberg half a year that they suppose they are more learned than I am.  When they go out into the country to other people, … Continue reading

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Reading Needs Memory

“Reading needs the aid of memory, and even if memory is sluggish, it is sharpened by frequent meditation, and recovered by assiduous reading.  Often a prolix reading will overwhelm the memory with its length, but if it is short, and … Continue reading

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The Foundations of Understanding

“Tender years should first be instructed in rules of the art or grammar, in analogies, in barbarisms, in solecisms, in tropes and schemata.  These are the studies on which Donatus, Servius, Priscian, Isidore, Bede, and Cassiodorus expounded with much diligence, … Continue reading

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Artists and the Liberal Arts

“I want the painter, as far as he is able, to be learned in all the liberal arts, but I wish him above all to have a good knowledge of geometry….Our rudiments, from which the complete and perfect art of … Continue reading

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The Remedy of Human Infirmity

“Although pleasurable in many ways, the pursuit of letters is especially fruitful because it excludes all annoyances stemming from differences of times and place, it draws friends into each other’s presence, and it abolishes the situation in which things worth … Continue reading

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Proper Digestion

“In the process of learning, the very thing that ought to be a great help, namely, a great desire to learn, often becomes for many people an impediment.  They want to take in everything at the same time, and are … Continue reading

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