“Barred from philosophy and bored by facts, he wanted to teach his students something not wholly useless. The number of students whose minds were of an order above the average was, in his experience, barely one in ten; the rest could not be much stimulated by any inducements a teacher could suggest. All were respectable, and in seven years of contact, Adams never had cause to complain of one; but nine minds in ten take polish passively, like a hard surface; only the tenth sensibly reacts.”

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

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Henry Adams311

journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838–1918

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“… what is there in the subject of psychology to demand the attention of the manager?
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Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

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Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

“Home influences alone never saved the New England boy from ruin, though sometimes they may have helped to ruin him; and the influences outside of home were negative. If school helped, it was only by reaction. The dislike of school was so strong as to be a positive gain. The passionate hatred of school methods was almost a method in itself. Yet the day-school of that time was respectable, and the boy had nothing to complain of. In fact, he never complained. He hated it because he was here with a crowd of other boys and compelled to learn by memory a quantity of things that did not amuse him. His memory was slow, and the effort painful. For him to conceive that his memory could compete for school prizes with machines of two or three times its power, was to prove himself wanting not only in memory, but flagrantly in mind. He thought his mind a good enough machine, if it were given time to act, but it acted wrong if hurried. Schoolmasters never gave time.

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Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

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Source: Circus of the Damned

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Silvia Prescott, in: "My teacher, Mr Iyengar: a former pupil remembers the yoga master"

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