Think About This - Self-Education

The United States, a Republic composed of individual Republics, will best maintain a disposition to liberty and justice by each being composed of an autonomous populace; only a people united by their differences may be indivisible."

Education: It has many designations--pedagogics, teaching, learning, inculcation, et cetera, yet it has only one true purpose; to draw out knowledge, or more precisely, draw out the ability to achieve knowledge; two separate aspects of the same primary term. Unfortunately, the former is quite rampantly mispracticed most of the time without any attention to the latter.

On the most part, popular education is the science of memorization, or, applied knowledge. If you sit back and merely absorb what is offered to you by someone else, you will enjoy all the advantages of a popular education. You will be taught what you must know and remember to fit into society, make money, and keep up with current perceptions of erudition; and in the end, this is all you will have. Simply because this is all that may be conveyed and gained by such means. I will admit, such things are helpful to us, yet the ability to achieve true knowledge, which is considerably more significant, is left aside; perhaps because it is more complex and time consuming within a typical classroom atmosphere.

First of all, the conveyance of the rudimentaries of self-education may only be possible if apperceived by the resident pedagogue. If not, even the best intentions would be exhaustive and futile.

True knowledge, as true education, cannot be applied or given from one person to another as a baton in a relay race; true knowledge must be personally reconciled within the mind. Although the knowledge itself may be universal, the processing of it is quite unique to the individual. Therefore, the only person who may utilize such unique processing to its zenith is the individual involved; hence the necessity of self-educating.

I am not advocating homeschooling here, I am pointing out the requirement of self-education, even in the event of attending an institute. You see there is a distinct difference between homeschooling, which is learning at home, and self-education, which is learning on your own, not necessarily alone, but on your own.

In any event, the task must ultimately fall to the student.

Your education is not the responsibility of any other person but you. Although you may be assisted through the process of your learning, you are the one who must actually make sense of it all, retain the acquired knowledge in proper perspective, and apply it when most useful throughout your life. Furthermore, self-education never ends, or should never. It keeps the mind virile and maintains perpetual conation.

What I am attempting within this article, is to inform the otherwise uninitiated abecedarian of her/his personal obligation; this invisible necessity of life, which, if unaware of, would not be immediately missed and perhaps never known.

The rewards of self-education are varied and considerable. Once you are well practiced in the art of teaching yourself, you will acquire {unless already achieved} self-confidence. Self-confidence is one of the cornerstones of character. With it come self-respect, self-reliance, and an independent spirit.

When you consider the brief and insignificant span of life we all have within the World we know, it could be argued that our own education, or, the ability to teach one's self, is the single most important achievement for us to accomplish after procreation. Still, the most important area of procreation is the education of those conceived...Perhaps then, they go hand in hand; without the one, there is no chance for the other, without the other, the one would be in vain.

I previously referred to self-education as a personal obligation; although the act is personal the requirement is not just.
This leads us to the meat of my immediate ambition.