“… as the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.”

—  William Godwin

"Of Choice in Reading", The Enquirer (1797)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "… as the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoice…" by William Godwin?
William Godwin photo
William Godwin36
English journalist, political philosopher and novelist 1756–1836

Related quotes

William Godwin photo

“Truth is powerful, and, if not instantly, at least by slow degrees, may make good her possession. Gleams of good sense may penetrate through the thickest clouds of error. But we are supposing in the present case that truth is the object of the preceptor. Upon that assumption it would be strange indeed, if he were not able to triumph over corruption and sophistry, with the advantage of being continually at hand, of watching every change and symptom as they may arise, and more especially with the advantage of real voice, of accommodated eloquence, and of living sympathies, over a dead letter. These advantages are sufficient; and, as the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking; open to him new mines of science and new incentives to virtue; and perhaps, by a blended and compound effect, produce in him an improvement which was out of the limits of his lessons, and raise him to heights the preceptor never knew.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

The Enquirer : Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature (1797), Essay XV : Of Choice In Reading, p. 130, (1823 edition)

Ngaio Marsh photo

“Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.”

Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982) New Zealand writer

Source: Death on the Air and Other Stories

Joseph Campbell photo

“The problem in our society and in our schools is to inclulcate, without overdoing it, the notion of education, as in the Latin educere--to lead, to bring out what is in someone rather than merely to indoctrinate him/her from the outside. (89)”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Hermann Adler photo

“The object of education is not merely to enable our children to gain their daily bread and to acquire pleasant means of recreation, but that they should know God and serve Him with earnestness and devotion.”

Hermann Adler (1839–1911) Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1891 to 1911

Source: Quoted in Joseph H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (One-volume edition), p. 78-9

“The word "education" comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul.”

Muriel Spark book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Source: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Tryon Edwards photo

“The great end of education is, to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 134.

“Otherwise you are not educated; you are merely trained.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

Pieces of Eight (1982)
Context: The most worthwhile form of education is the kind that puts the educator inside you, as it were, so that the appetite for learning persists long after the external pressure for grades and degrees has vanished. Otherwise you are not educated; you are merely trained.

“I have never believed that the historian should seek to perpetuate the misapprehensions of the past, and it is true that we understand Beethoven today better than his contemporaries did, better, above all, than the generation that immediately followed him, including his own most important pupil, Karl Czerny.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994), Ch. 2 : How to Become Immortal

Walter Dill Scott photo

“The man with the proper imagination is able to conceive of any commodity in such a way that it becomes an object of emotion to him and to those to whom he imparts his picture, and hence creates desire rather than a mere feeling of ought.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Influencing men in business, 1911, p. 134

George Long photo

“Some distinguished philosophers think that boys' eyes should be taught or trained to the examination of objects”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Context: Some distinguished philosophers think that boys' eyes should be taught or trained to the examination of objects: in other words, that boys should be taught to observe things and to see likeness and difference. It is done to some extent by all boys: their games teach them something, and they know a cake from an apple. But the power of careful, patient looking at a thing is not fully acquired without some pains on the part of a teacher. When a boy reads aloud, he must look carefully at the words and letters, or he will blunder. This is an instance of observation. But the philosophers mean, I believe, that we should introduce certain things called sciences into school teaching.

Related topics