What is education?

What is education? March 15, 2017

 

Inside the JFSB courtyard
Looking eastward across the inner courtyard of the Joseph F. Smith Building, where my college (Humanities) and my department (Asian and Near Eastern Languages) and my personal office are housed   (BYU photograph)

 

“Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life.”

Brigham Young

 

This simple quotation has been adopted, for the moment at least, as something of a motto for my college, the College of Humanities, here at Brigham Young University.  (You can see it in abbreviated form here, on my College’s website:  http://humanities.byu.edu.)

 

Yesterday, as I was waiting for somebody, I contemplated it on a poster:

 

Think Clearly * Act Well * Appreciate Life

 

And it occurred to me that it’s a pretty decent summary of the aims of a good education and of what ought to be the goals of a good and serious person.  Really quite good indeed.

 

 


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