12
" Though I have lived most of my life with
educationalists, I have little interest in educa¬
tion. I dislike schools, both for boys and
girls. A child between the ages of eight and
eighteen, the normal school years, is too young
to form a collective opinion, children only
set up foolish savage taboos. I dislike also
all plans for “developing a child’s mind ”,
and all conscious forms of personal influence
of the younger by the elder. Let children
early speak at least three foreign languages,
let them browse freely in a good library, see
all they can of the first-rate in nature, art,
and literature—above all, give them a chance
of knowing what science and scientific method
means, and then leave them to sink or swim.
Above all things, do not cultivate in them a
taste for literature. "
― Jane Ellen Harrison , Reminiscences of a Student's Life
13
" As to Death, when I was young, personal immortality seemed to me axiomatic. The mere thought of Death made me furious. I was so intensely alive I felt I could defy any one, anything—God, or demon, or Fate herself—to put me out. All that is changed now. If I think of Death at all it is merely as a negation of life, a close, a last and necessary chord. What I dread is disease, that is, bad, disordered life, not Death, and disease, so far, I have escaped. I have no hope whatever of personal immortality, no desire even for a future life. My consciousness began in a very humble fashion, with my body; with my body, very quietly, I hope it will end. "
― Jane Ellen Harrison , Reminiscences of a Student's Life