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Literary notes about EDUCATION (AI summary)

Literary authors have deployed the term “education” in a variety of creative and nuanced ways. Sometimes it is used metaphorically to critique social change or transformation, as when education turns something basic into a refined variant—illustrated humorously when Twain describes cauliflower as “cabbage with a college education” [1]. At other times, education is portrayed in the traditional sense—a structured progression of learning marked by childhood milestones and academic achievements, as seen in Fielding’s snapshot of early literacy [2] or the detailed journeys in Thomas Jefferson’s and Henry Adams’s memoirs [3], [4]. In philosophical and political texts, education becomes a broader metaphor for societal values and the transmission of wisdom: Plato’s works discuss its role in shaping just leaders [5], while John Dewey and others debate its capability to reconcile conflicting values and foster civic responsibility [6], [7]. Even satirical and cultural narratives, ranging from Thackeray’s social commentary [8] to the keen observations of Alexis de Tocqueville [9], remind readers that education in literature is both a literal process of learning and a powerful symbol for transformation and critique.
  1. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
    — from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
  2. At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing and reading)
    — from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1 by Henry Fielding
  3. When he was thirteen his parents sent him to the nearest city in search of an education.
    — from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
  4. He had drifted far away and behind his companions there; no one trusted his temperament or education; he had to go.
    — from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
  5. The guardians of the law are to be ministers of justice, and the president of education is to take precedence of them all.
    — from Laws by Plato
  6. But they all of them profoundly influenced men's subsequent thinking and their ideas about education.
    — from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
  7. In this sense, heredity is a limit of education.
    — from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
  8. The world and the cause of education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANY YEARS.
    — from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  9. Education, as well as charity, is become in most countries at the present day a national concern.
    — from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

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