Matt Ely’s Reviews > Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind > Status Update

"If we affirm a principle that is supposed to be self-evident, without its being evident to us, or a conclusion that is supposed to be demonstrated, without being able to demonstrate it... we have acquired an opinion, not knowledge; and if we persist in it through a sort of verbal memory, rather than a truly intellectual penetration of truth, we have been indoctrinated, not instructed."

"We cannot educate the young; the best we can do for them is to school them in such a way that they have a good chance to become educated in the course of their adult life."

"Failing to develop critical minds... contemporary education makes the way easy for demagogues of all sorts... For whenever reason does not rule, the mind must yield to the sheer weight of opinion propagated by pressure; only might remains and none dares say it is not right."

This dude is speaking my language. The quote in from 1941 but it's no less true today.

"Novelty by itself does not stir us; it must be proclaimed as dispensing us from former allegiances. We are not content to say 'This too is true"; we must revolutionize thought by saying "Nothing but this is true.'"