motto lotto

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

there are no educators

There are no educators.— As a thinker one should speak only of self-education. The education of youth by others is either an experiment carried out on an as yet unknown and unknowable subject, or a leveling on principle with the object of making a new being, whatever it may be, conform to the customs and habits then prevailing: in both cases therefore something unworthy of the thinker, the work of those elders and teachers whom a man of rash honesty once described as nos ennemis naturels.— One day, when one has long since been educated as the world understands it, one discovers oneself: here begins the task of the thinker; now the time has come to call on him for assistance—not as an educator but as one who has educated himself and thus knows how it is done.

Nietzsche - The Wanderer and His Shadow §267