What Knowledge is of Most Worth

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J.B. Alden, 1884 - 82 pages

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Page 16 - Those activities which have for their end the rearing and discipline of offspring ; 4. Those activities which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and political relations ; 5. Those- miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings.
Page 3 - ... here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, — the chosen and the mighty of every place and time...
Page 15 - In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to manage our affairs ; in what way to bring up a family ; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature supplies — how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others...
Page 39 - The vital knowledge— that by which we have grown as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners; while the ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling little else but dead formulas.
Page 39 - That which our school courses leave almost entirely out, we thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. Aff] our industries would cease, were it not for! that information which men begin to acquire ' ' as they best may after their education is said to be finished.
Page 18 - ... underlies the welfare of society. And hence, knowledge directly conducing to the first, must take precedence of knowledge directly conducing to the last. Those various forms of pleasurable occupation which fill up the leisure left by graver occupations — the enjoyments of music, poetry, painting, etc. — manifestly imply a pre-existing society. Not only is a considerable development of them impossible without a long-established social union, but their very subject-matter consists in great...
Page 47 - The belief, not only of the socialists but also of those so-called Liberals who are diligently preparing the way for them, is that by due skill an illworking humanity may be framed into well-working institutions. It is a delusion. The defective natures of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into. There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts.
Page 58 - When the forces of Nature have been fully conquered to man's use— when the means of production have been brought to perfection— when...
Page 15 - To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge; and the only rational mode of judging of an educational course, is to judge in what degree it discharges such function.
Page 32 - And as the ability of a nation to hold its own against other nations depends on the skilled activity of its units, we see that on such knowledge may turn the national fate.

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