On Education

19 May 2005 · #ramblings

Found this in the Wikipedia entry on Alan Turing:

Turing's natural inclination toward mathematics and science did not earn him respect with the teachers at Sherborne, a famous and expensive public school (a British private school with charitable status), whose definition of education placed more emphasis on the classics. His headmaster wrote to his parents: "I hope he will not fall between two schools. If he is to stay at Public School, he must aim at becoming educated. If he is to be solely a Scientific Specialist, he is wasting his time at a Public School."

I think it’s appropriate to quote that oft-quoted Mark Twain quote here:

I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.

PS: After writing this entry, I noticed that the first quote had a typo: “he must aimed at becoming educated.” Usually when quoting text that has an error, I put a [sic] and leave it at that. But if the source is a wiki, I just edit the source! :-)