DONT LET SCHOOL INTERFERE WITH YOUR EDUCATION

“DON’T LET SCHOOL INTERFERE WITH YOUR EDUCTATION!”


“Don’t let school interfere with your education” was the most powerful maxim and quote of Mark Twain. Born, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), he wrote many humours articles, satires and novels under the pen name Mark Twain. He was also a good lecturer and the most popular celibrity in America during his time.

The quote, “don’t let school interfere with your education” was made at a time when America had a few institutions of formal education. As a result of that, many Americans dropped out of school and began learning different forms of trade at early stages in life. Mark Twain gained popularity with this statement because it was a source of insipration to many. By this maxim, America was able to make maximum use of all its citizens including those who did not get the chance to go through formal education.

Africa appears to be in a state similar to America in the time of Mark Twain. Formal education is lacking in most parts of Africa. From the current trend of events in Africa, it appears that the chruch is the institution from which a social revolution to empower those who did not get formal education can be initiated.

It is observed that the African continent can make do with this statement from two perspectives:

1. Helping those who did not have the chance to be educated in schools to gain confidence and the skills to do something meaninful in society. In the church this can be done mainly through Spirit-backed oratory sermons that will challenge and spark up the potentials of the members in this category to go into action AND
2. Redirecting those who have had formal education: Due to the poor structure of formal education in Africa, many people go through school and instead of using their knowledge to improve society, they brag with their certificates and cause confusion with the education they have attianed. As observed form the sermons of Pastor Enoch Aminu, many people must be encouraged to become selfmade, rather than driven people so that they can give their best to society irrespective of the limitations formal education may bring.

Aside this popular statement, Mark Twain is identified with many maxims and quotes. Some of them are valid and very strong in influencing the society of today, whereas others are not very much of significance in today’s world. They include:

1. A habit cannot be thrown out the window, it must be coaxed down the stairs one step at a time.
2. Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

3. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest

4. To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence (similar to Jesus’ requirement of his followers being like children).
5. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.

6. I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.

7. There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress (Politicians)

8. Truth is our most valuable commodity - let us economize.

9. Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company

10. Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to

11. The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug (a fire fly).

12. A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

13. 'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.

14. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society

15. The lack of money is the root of all evil

16. It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."

17. October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February

18. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics

19. [The human] race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter

20. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane, not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic—for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his... When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad."

21. I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat (Other religions and New Age movements).


OTHER RELATED SAYINGS BY FAMOUS PEOPLE
Mother Teresa

1. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
2. If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
3. We can do no great things - only small things with great love

Margaret Thatcher
1. Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.
2. Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
3. Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you

Clarence Thomas
1. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.
2. I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.

Lewis Thompson
1. Life Lives On Hope

Henry David Thoreau
1. That government is best which governs least.
2. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because hehears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, howevermeasured or far away.

James Thurber
1. It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers
Paul Tournier
1. Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
Robert Townsend
1. When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure
Henry Truman
1. I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm.

Harry S. Truman
1. I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
2. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

Turkish proverb
1. No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.

Donald Trump
1. I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.

Dale Turner
1. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. Recognizing our limitations and imperfections is the first requisite of progress. Those who believe they have arrived believe they have nowhere to go. Some not only have closed their minds to new truth, but they sit on the lid.

Lana Turner
1. A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

Sun Tzu
1. Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack. One defends when his strength is inadequate; he attacks when it is abundant.




References:
1. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
2. Redsat Inc. website, Quotations for last names starting with T.htm

Visit our website on www.preacherswithoutborders.faithweb.com