5th February

Education, as Professor Z. Young has put it so well [Hitchcock Lectures (University of California in Berkeley, 1964)], consists in seriously damaging our central nervous system and in eliminating reactions of which it was initially capable. Admitting such damage and the consequent lack of imagination is one thing. However, one should never go so far as to try to inflict it upon others in the guise of a philosophical dogma.

"On the 'meaning' of scientific terms", Journal of Philosophy, vol. 12, 1965. Reprinted in: Realism, Rationalism and Scientific Method (Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1.), Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1981. p.103.

Or let us examine the efforts of our educators who year in year out are let loose on the younger generation to fill it with 'knowledge' without regard for the background of the pupils. Entire cultures have been killed, their immune systems destroyed . . ., their knowledge turned into a scarcity – and all that in the name of progress (and money, of course).

Farewell to Reason. London – New York: Verso, 1987. p.311.

Education is a way of protecting people from being educated.

Three Dialogues on Knowledge, (Second Dialogue, 1976), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. p.53.