G.K. Chesterton on Education

The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of public schools is this: that there is a whole truth of things, and that in knowing it and speaking it we are happy. ("The Boy." All Things Considered.)

The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks and experiments to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through the Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the marketplace.

Obviously it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school today the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four actually has more experience, and has weathered the world longer than the dogma to which he is made to submit.

Many a school boasts of having the last ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn something from experience. But this is all due to the mere fact that we are managed by a little oligarchy; my system presupposes that men who govern themselves will govern their children. (What's Wrong with the World)

The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards by which he can judge material and fugitive standards. (Illustrated London News 3-29-30)

The only real object of all education is to teach people the proportions of things, that they may see what things are large and what small: we seem bent on teaching to prefer in everything what is small to what is great, what is doubtful to what is certain, and what is trivial to what is eternal. (ILN Aug. 24, 1912)

To say that the moderns are half-educated may seem to be too complimentary by half. (ILN 6-2-28)

It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to children. The smaller our faith in doctrine, the larger our faith in doctors. . .

Education is implication. It is not the things you say which children respect; when you say things, they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume that really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn. . .  (ILN 1-12-07)

It is the great paradox of the modern world that at the very time when the world decided that people should not be coerced about their form of religion, it also decided that they should be coerced about their form of education. (ILN 8-8-25)

The mere word "Science" is already used as a sacred and mystical word in many matters of politics and ethics. It is already used vaguely to threaten the most vital traditions of civilization - the family and the freedom of the citizen.(ILN 10-9-20)

I have nothing but general information; but it is fairly general. What surprises me in people younger, brighter, and more progressively educated than myself is that their general information is very sketchy. ("St. George" All I Survey)

I think our coercive popular education has been uncommonly near a complete failure. (ILN 1-31-14)

Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used to describe as Self-Examination. The consequence is that the modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads. (Nash's Pall Mall Magazine. April,1935)

The truth is that the modern world has committed itself to two totally different and inconsistent conceptions about education. It is always trying to expand the scope of education; and always trying to exclude from it all religion and philosophy. But this is sheer nonsense. You can have an education that teaches atheism because atheism is true, and it can be, from its own point of view, a complete education. But you cannot have an education claiming to teach all truth, and then refusing to discuss whether atheism is true. (The Common Man)

Take away the supernatural and what remains is the unnatural. (Heretics)

About half the history now taught in schools and colleges is made windy and barren by the narrow notion of leaving out the theological theories. . . Historians seem to have completely forgotten two facts - first, that men act from ideas; and second, that it might, therefore, be as well to discover which ideas. (ILN 5-13-11)

Because the elementary school doesn't teach theology, it must be excused when it doesn't teach anything. The bias of the modern world is so enormous that it will allow a thing to be inefficient as long as it is also irreligious. (ILN 7-18-14)

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their common sense. (ILN 9-7-29)

If you exalt education, you must exalt the parental power with it. If you deprecate the parental power, you must deprecate education with it. ("Turning Inside Out" Fancies vs. Fads)

Without the family we are helpless before the state. (The Superstition of Divorce.)

There is something to be said for teaching everything to somebody, as compared with the modern notion of teaching nothing, and the same sort of nothing, to everybody. For what we force on all families, by the power of the police, is not a philosophy but the art of reading and writing unphilosophically. (All I Survey)

Every education teaches a philosophy; if not by dogma then by suggestion, by implication, by atmosphere. Every part of that education has a connection with every other part. If it does not all combine to convey some general view of life, it is not an education at all. (The Common Man)

The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education. It is no longer a world in which the souls of all are equal before heaven, but a world in which the mind of each is bent on achieving unequal advantage over the other. (The Common Man)

These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own. (ILN 8-11-28)

Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.  (ILN 9-30-33)

Teach, to the young, men's enduring truths, and let the learned amuse themselves with their passing errors.  (ILN 10-15-10)

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching. (What's Wrong With the World)

We cannot settle education until we settle religion. (ILN 9-20-24)

Education is only the truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand? (What's Wrong with the World.)