Freemason Wisdom: Oscar Wilde On Education

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

~Oscar Wilde
Apollo University Lodge No. 357
Oxford, England

There are a lot of versions of this saying.  Everyone from Benjamin Franklin to Winston Churchill have made similar remarks.  They all seemed to understand the same thing--while education is important, there's a great deal you can't learn in the classroom.  Many of mankind's most intangible strengths have nothing to do with formal education--they come from lessons we learn by living life.  The best lessons are the ones we learn the hard way. They come from failures and mistakes we make along the way.  They come from falling in and out of love.  They come from facing adversity.  They come from making friends as well as enemies.  They come from being knocked down, and from standing back up again. 

I worry about our children. We learned those lessons by surviving our childhood (which wasn't always easy).  Our children are growing up in a world where most of the obstacles have been removed.  Will they ever learn those hard-won lessons about life when they are seldom challenged by adversity?  Could that be why so many kids today have problems with anxiety?  When do kids in today's world learn how to cope with the challenges life is going to throw at them? 

~TEC

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.