“Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge.” — William Johnson Cory | V2Melody

“Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge.”

Making self-understanding the highest purpose of education · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

William Johnson Cory

About William Johnson Cory

William Johnson Cory

9 January 1823–11 June 1892

William Johnson Cory, born William Johnson on 9 January 1823 and dead on 11 June 1892, occupies an unusual but durable place in English literary history. He was never a major public poet in the Victorian manner of Tennyson or Browning; he published relatively little, lived much of his life within the secluded world of…

More by William Johnson Cory

Poems by William Johnson Cory

More remarks by William Johnson Cory

“Nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions.”

Suggesting that forgotten learning can still shape judgement and understanding · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

“For the art of entering quickly into another person's thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation.”

Valuing intellectual sympathy alongside a willingness to accept correction · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

“But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits.”

Presenting education as the formation of intellectual habits rather than simple fact-gathering · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861