EduArt – think Science and Arts Together

EduArt must also pay attention to learning – Leibniz taught what we should not forget today:

In a philosophical essay, in which he describes himself under the name of Gulielmus Pacidius, he says:—

“Wilhelm Friedlieb, a German by birth, who lost his father in his early years, was led to study through the innate tendency of his spirit; and the freedom with which he moved about in the sciences was equal to this innate impulse. He buried himself, a boy eight years old, in a library, staying there sometimes whole days, and, hardly stammering Latin, he took up every book which pleased his eyes. Opening and shutting them without any choice, he sipped now here, now there, lost himself in one, skipped over another, as the clearness of expression or of content attracted him. He seemed to be directed by the Tolle et lege of a higher voice. As good fortune would have it, he gave himself up to the ancients, in whom he at first understood nothing, by degrees a little, finally all that was really necessary, until he assumed not only a certain coloring of their expression, but also of their thought,—just as those who go about in the sun, even while they are occupied with other things, get sun-browned.”

And he goes on to tell us that their influence always remained with him. Their human, their important, their comprehensive ideas, grasping the whole of life in one image, together with their clear, natural, and transparent mode of expression, adapted precisely to their thoughts, seemed to him to be in the greatest contrast with the writings of moderns, without definiteness or order in expression, and without vitality or purpose in thought,—“written as if for another world.” Thus Leibniz learned two of the great lessons of his life,—to seek always for clearness of diction and for pertinence and purpose of ideas.

(From: LEIBNIZ’S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.  A CRITICAL EXPOSITION.  By JOHN DEWEY; CHICAGO: SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 1902: 15)