“Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”
Curiosity is presented not as distraction but as a durable sign of an active, capable mind.
The Rambler, No. 103.
“It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.”
Habit formation becomes stronger when action is joined with reflection, because principles understood and revisited are more likely to guide later choices.
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “THE BENEFITS WHICH ARISE FROM DISAPPOINTMENTS,” printed page 111, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft says reflection forms habits and fixes principles while opening a religious-moral discussion of disappointment, self-examination and character.
“education ought to do more for a boy”
Washington rejects an overly narrow definition of schooling and asks whether education can improve the practical conditions and responsibilities of life.
Working With the Hands, Chapter I; Project Gutenberg #64504. This short excerpt precedes Washington’s discussion of poverty, family responsibility and practical education.
“My subject was mental efficiency as a means to self-development.”
Efficiency is presented as instrumental rather than an end in itself: better use of attention and thought is valuable insofar as it supports deliberate personal development.
Mental Efficiency. Bennett explicitly defines the scope of his argument as mental efficiency serving self-development; this is period conduct-of-life writing rather than modern cognitive-science evidence.
“it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.”
Learning becomes knowledge, in this account, when material has been actively reconsidered and integrated rather than merely encountered or memorized.
The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The preceding sentence says a person must first learn something before turning it over in the mind.
“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
Bacon distinguishes what reading, conversation, and writing each contribute to intellectual development.
Of Studies; Bacon distinguishes the intellectual uses of reading, conversation, and writing within the essay’s compact account of study and judgment.
“Experience is primarily an active-passive affair; it is not primarily cognitive.”
Dewey treats experience as a combination of doing and undergoing consequences, with understanding developing through the relationship between action and what follows from it.
Democracy and Education (1916), Chapter XI, “Experience and Thinking.” Dewey describes experience as a relation between doing and undergoing consequences, then immediately qualifies the active-passive formulation by saying that valuable experience includes cognition insofar as relationships and continuities are perceived. Verified against Project Gutenberg #852 and the scan-backed Wikisource Chapter XI transcription. The sentence is not a denial that cognition matters and is not presented as modern neuroscientific evidence.
