Education

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 21, § 244 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway): When we see the many and manifold institutions of teaching and learning and the great throng of pupils and masters, one could think that the human race is quite keen about insight and truth. But here appearance is deceiving. The masters teach in order to earn money and they do not strive for truth, but for its appearance and standing; the pupils do not learn in order to attain knowledge and insight, but in order to babble and give themselves airs. Thus a new generation like this appears every thirty years, a wide-eyed child, knowing nothing and in all haste summarily devouring the results of human knowledge accumulated over thousands of years, and then claiming to be smarter than all the past. For this purpose he attends universities and reaches for books, moreover for the newest ones as his contemporaries and peers. Everything has to be brief and new,…