The role of schooling

You go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits, for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a
moment’s notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation,
for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible
in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness.

— William Johnson Cory, English educator and poet.

Cited in: Rupert Hart-Davis, ed. (1978-79) The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters: Correspondence of George Lyttelton and Rupert Hart-Davis, 1955-1962. London: John Murray, pp.19-20.

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