The result of this mental dullness is that inner vacuity and emptiness that is stamped on innumerable faces and also betrays itself in a constant and lively attention to all events in the external world, even the most trivial. This vacuity is the real source of boredom and always craves for external excitement in order to set the mind and spirits in motion through something. Therefore in the choice thereof it is not fastidious, as is testified by the miserable and wretched pastimes to which people have recourse. … The principal result of this inner vacuity is the craze for society, diversion, amusement, and luxury of every kind which lead many to extravagance and so to misery. Nothing protects us so surely from this wrong turning as inner wealth, the wealth of the mind, for the more eminent it becomes, the less room does it leave for boredom. The inexhaustible activity of ideas, their constantly renewed play with the manifold phenomena of the inner and outer worlds, the power and urge always to make different combinations of them, all these put the eminent mind, apart from moments of relaxation, quite beyond the reach of boredom.
-Arthur Schopenhauer, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life


Many people have no idea what they are talking about when discussing the rationale behind education. If you got a degree in anything besides business and engineering ‘you were taken in by some Pinko Shysters and wasted four years of your life’.
The failure to understand education is epitomized by the populist teen that says ‘when am I going to use this in real life’. Most adults make the same argument if perhaps more cogently.
The purpose of education is to develop first the discipline to learn, second the will to learn and finally the love of learning.
The Utilitarian reformers never understood this. Why force children to write and read a language that no nation speaks? Why force children to learn cursive when they have keyboards? Why force children to learn grammar when they have spell check (although rumours abound that the Führerprinzip prevails here)? Why force children to learn an intricate system like the imperial when the metric can be memorized in no time?
The Utilitarian experiment in education has failed to even instill the discipline to learn and even if the will to learn is not strangled by the ghost of Mr. Dewey Decimal the love of learning is attained by fewer and fewer people.
Our principal of education should be almost like the ironically rational system of Plato’s republic. Those few who manage to develop a love of learning are those who can come closest to the divine. These few are condemned to serve as the leaders of our folk.
- Donatus X