It is not my wish to lounge about the college and fatten on a fellowship all my days. I am always trying to look upon a college life as a medium not an end.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to view college as a means to gain knowledge rather than a lifelong goal.
Thomas Edward Brown emphasizes the importance of perceiving college not as a destination but as a stepping stone towards greater knowledge and personal growth. He reflects a proactive attitude towards education, suggesting that one should seek to utilize their time in college to develop skills and insights that will serve them long after graduation.
In practice
In a graduation speech, one might use this quote to inspire students to continue their quest for knowledge beyond their college years.
The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; if is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment from which forms the secret of civilization.
My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.
For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths.
As an educator, I try to get people to be fundamentally curious and to question ideas that they might have or that are shared by others. In that state of mind, they have earned a kind of inoculation against the fuzzy thinking of these weird ideas floating around out there.
If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don't crush them with some clever remark straight away.
His Son Jesus, the Word of God, is our Instructor.... He is God and Creator.
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