Otequay of the Ayday

I found today's Wikiquote 'Quote of the day' to be highly satisfying, and not just because it was accompanied by 19th century French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre's 1870 oil on canvas work entitled "La Vérité" (Truth). [Who said nothing good ever came from France? OK, in the future I'll use the qualifier "since the 19th century.]

In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a University, the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley {Emphasis from the original.]

Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 - 29 June 1895) was a British biologist and grandfather of Aldous. A brief review of his personal Wikiquote page reveals him to be nearly on par with R.A. Heinlein for quotability.

Education Philosophy Posted by JohnGalt at September 23, 2009 6:47 PM