Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to.?

Question

Do you agree with this statement:

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.

Thomas H. Huxley, English biologist (1825 - 1895)

Answer 1

I agree, ABSOLUTELY!

Answer 2

I agree with the IDEA of this statement, but don't believe that the statement is true in this century. In the late 1800s education was very different than it is today. Today's education system (US public schools) base their education on what the students need to know for tests because the tests determine how much money the school recieves.

Many people will take calculus, chemistry, and algebra and never use what they learned outside of an acidemic setting, but lessions about what the REAL world is like could be much more valuable. I left high school and took paramedic training, and as someone who work out on the streets in a bad part of town I can tell you with 100% certainty that schools, be it grade school, high school, or college are unable to prepare students for what life beyond their at lest partialy sheltered lives is like.

I was fourtionate to go to private schools from pre-school through 12th grade, but even there the focus of education was traditional subjects like history, math, sciences, and english. Prehaps the only time I truly felt that I was learning a valuable life lesson was in a senior year elective, Wilderness First Responder/Anatomy & Physiology. Wilderness first responder (WFR) is a type of certification similar to emergency medical technician (EMT), and one important part of emergency medicine is triage and then doing what needs to be done. While this is a highly specialized course in wilderness medicine, the idea of triaging patients based on severity of injury is virtualy the same what Huxley discribed.

I was lucky enough to take a class where I could draw connections, the class, or any other class I have taken during the course of my education related to doing what needs to be done.

Answer 3

I fart in the general direction of that statement. The goal of education is the intake of knowledge, it won't ever give you the ability to make yourself do the things you have to do. That only comes with life experience, whether you are educated or not.