Mortimer J. Adler: Quotes about learning

Mortimer J. Adler was American philosopher and educator. Explore interesting quotes on learning.
Mortimer J. Adler: 62 quotes2 likes

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”

Mortimer J. Adler

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information

“It is only by struggling with difficult books, books over one's head, that anyone learns to read.”

Mortimer J. Adler

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 315

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.”

Mortimer J. Adler

Source: Joseph Allen (1979). The Leisure alternatives catalog: food for mind & body. p. 134

“Montaigne speaks of an “Abecedarian” ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it. The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their A-B-C’s, cannot read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, “bookful blockheads, ignorantly read.” There have always been literate ignoramuses, who have read too widely, and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all “sophomores.””

Mortimer J. Adler book How to Read a Book

Source: How to Read a Book (1940, 1972), p. 11

“A report of the Carnegie Foundation recommended the abolition of the undergraduate bachelor of science degree in education leading to the state certification of teachers. Schools of education should become research institutions at the graduate level of the university and not places for the training of schoolteachers. Those planning to enter the profession of teaching should have four years of general, liberal education at the college level, and then three years of practice teaching under supervision… the best teacher is one who learns in the process of teaching.”

Mortimer J. Adler

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 314

“To avoid this error, the error of assuming that that to be widely read and to be well read are the same thing, we must consider a certain distinction in types of learning. … In the history of education, men have often distinguished between learning by instruction and learning by discovery. … Discovery stands to instruction as learning without a teacher stands to learning through the help of one. In both cases the activity of learning goes on in the one who learns. It would be a mistake to suppose that discovery is active learning, and instruction passive. There is no inactive learning, just as there is no inactive reading. This is so true, in fact, that a better way to make the distinction clear is to call instruction “aided discovery.””

Mortimer J. Adler book How to Read a Book

Source: How to Read a Book (1940, 1972), p. 11-12

“It is obvious that teaching is a very special art, sharing with only two other arts, agriculture and medicine, an exceptionally important characteristic A doctor may do many things for his patient, but in the final analysis, it is the patient himself who must get well, grow in health. The farmer does many things for his plants or animals, but in the final analysis, it is they that must grow in size and excellence. Similarly, although the teacher may help his student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning. Knowledge must grow in his mind if learning is to take place.”

Mortimer J. Adler book How to Read a Book

Source: How to Read a Book (1940, 1972), p. 12