Source: The Discovery of the Child (1948), Ch. 8 : The Exercises, p. 141
Variant translation:
This then is the first duty of an educator: to stir up life but leave it free to develop.
Context: This is our mission: to cast a ray of light and pass on. I compare the effects of these first lessons the impressions of a solitary wanderer who is walking serene and happy in a shady grove, meditating; that is leaving his inner thought free to wander. Suddenly a church bell pealing out nearby recalls to himself; then he feels more keenly that peaceful bliss which had already been born, though dormant, within him.
To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the first duty of the educator.
For such a delicate mission great art is required to suggest the right moment and to limit intervention, last one should disturb or lead astray rather than help the soul which is coming to life and which will live by virtue of it's own efforts.
This art must accompany the scientific method, because the simplicity of our lessons bears a great resemblance to experiments in experimental psychology.
“The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.”
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
This is a paraphrase of an idea that Dewey expressed using other words in My Pedagogic Creed (1897) and Democracy and Education (1916); it is widely misattributed to Dewey as a quotation.
Cf. James William Norman, A Comparison of Tendencies in Secondary Education in England and the United States (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1922), [//books.google.com/books?id=qrmgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA140 p. 140] (emphasis added): "...there has for years been a strong and growing tendency in the United States under the leadership of Dewey, and more recently of Kilpatrick, to find an educational method correlative of democracy in society with the belief that education is life itself rather than a mere preparation for life, and that practice in democratic living is the best preparation for democracy."
Misattributed
Variant: Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself.
“One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.”
Source: Sir William Osler : Aphorisms (1961), p. 105.
“It is life itself that educates.”
Das Leben bildet.
Schwanengesang [Swan Song] (1826)
"Liberal Education: Enabling Citizens to do their Duty as Free Men", Report of the president of St. John's College to the Board of Visitors and Governors, May, 1941. Hanging in Buchanan Hall, St. John's College Annapolis
“Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of the students.”
Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2
Preface
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
