http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/21/messages/1174.html
Re: experience is the best teacher
Posted by ESC on June 29, 2003 at 18:34:35: In Reply to: experience is the best
teacher posted by ope on June 29, 2003 at 17:39:18:
: hi please help me with this assignment what is the meaning of the proverb
experience is the best teacher?
Most people learn more by doing something than by reading about it.
EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER – “The great Roman leader Julius Caesar
recorded the earliest known version of this proverb, ‘Experience is the
teacher of all things,’ in ‘De Bello Civili’ (c. 52 B.C.). Over a century
later, the Roman author Pliny the Elder in ‘Naturalis Historia’ (A.D. 77)
wrote, ‘Experience is the most efficient teacher of all things,’ and the
Roman historian Tacitus said simply, ‘Experience teaches,’ in his
‘Histories’ (c. 209). The earliest English rendering appeared in 1539 as
‘Experience is mother of prudence,’ which was included in Richard
Taverner’s ‘Proverbes or Adagies.’…the exact wording, ‘Experience is
the best teacher,’ appeared in the ‘Widow Bedott Papers’ (1856) by
Frances M. Whitcher…†From “Wise Words and Wives’ Tales: The Origins,
Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and Newâ€
by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993).
Another source gives the meaning and a later date for the first English
rendering: “One learns more from experience than from books. The proverb has
been traced back to ‘The Schoolmaster’ (1568) by Roger Ascham and comes
from the L*tin phrase ‘experiential docent’ meaning ‘experience
teaches.’ Water Scott (1854-1900) disagrees with the proverb, saying that
‘experience is the name every one gives tho their mistakes.’…†From
“Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings†by Gregory Y.
Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).
http://www.wabash.edu/news/showstory.cfm?news_ID=400
Experience is the Best Teacher for Dill Interns
by Susan CantrellJune 20, 2003Last fall 15 Wabash students who were Dill
Interns returned to campus with a wealth of knowledge gleaned from summer
experience. Each of them had spent the summer studying and visiting places
he’d never seen before. They were creative and imaginative in their choices,
and they were raring to go. One stayed in the United States; the others were in
Europe, Mexico, and India. They worked in government-sponsored community
programs, a discount store, a museum, and an Italian monastery. They studied
languages, political situations, music composition, and more.
The students had to jump through some hoops to be considered for the program:
plan their own trip itineraries; make living and travel arrangements; calculate
the trip’s cost; get faculty approval; and persuade their parents before they
could even apply to the Dean of the college for the internship provided for
them by Michael Dill, Wabash Class of 1971 and a native of Williamsport,
Indiana.
They also had to promise to write a comprehensive essay upon their return to
campus in the fall.
Near the end of this past school year it was my happy task to interview several
of them for an article in Wabash Magazine. Into my office they filed, one at a
time for about two weeks, taking time away from studying for finals. Poised at
the brink of one of life’s hurdles, graduation from college, they took time
to tell me, with great enthusiasm, about the lessons of the previous summer.
Experience is the best teacher. These young men proved it again. As the
stories poured out of them, I understood more clearly the value of seeing
first-hand, learning first-hand, and doing first-hand whatever interests you.
These young men are fortunate to be taught in the classroom by excellent Wabash
professors who care about them. The professors want the young men to learn and
grow, and do their best to make that happen, but there is still nothing quite
like personal experience to make the knowledge part of you.
Wabash students, like millions before them, read The Odyssey, Homer’s classic
story of the heroic Odysseus journeying home after the Trojan War. Bryan
Gonzalez from Fishers, Indiana, had a much deeper understanding of man’s
struggle against pride and temptation after he was able to see Odysseus’s
route during his summer study in Greece.
After spending time considering the way we humans face life’s moral
pitfalls, Bryan spent the rest of the summer in the midst two settings in the
sharpest moral contrast: a Benedictine monastery in Italy, where worked and
studied the discipline and grace of the monks’ daily life; and Berlin,
Germany, where he worked at a professional depiction of horrors of the Nazi and
Gestapo atrocities committed during WWII.
There were also two Wabash students who have been studying the Mexican
migration to Crawfordsville. The young men interviewed local Crawfordsville
residents who had come from Mexico, then retraced the trip of one lady who came
all the way here by bus.
Melecio Gonzalez and Ben Tooley , from southern Texas and northern Indiana
respectively, met with Mexican relatives of the new Crawfordsville residents,
and spent time with border guards from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, as well as members of groups that set up water facilities for the
illegal aliens who are crossing the borders. What a learning experience!
It is one thing to talk in the abstract about immigration policy, but quite
another to meet people who want to be in the United States to earn a living
wage to keep their families healthy and safe. It is still quite another to talk
with men and women whose job it is to uphold the law and keep illegal aliens
out of our country. And certainly still another thing to talk with the men and
women who provide a cup of water to people so desperate to come to this country
that they cross the desert border at great risk of arrest or death.
No political issue will ever look the same to those young men because, having
seen one first-hand, they understand that sweeping government policies
ultimately come down to individual human beings.
The experiences of Dill Interns in the summer of 2002 could fill this
newspaper, so it has been necessary to tell you just a little about the
adventures of three of the fifteen. Right now, thanks to the extraordinary
generosity of Mr. Dill, there are 15 other Wabash students scattered around the
world, looking and learning, gaining in understanding as taught by that
wonderful teacher—experience. I can hardly wait to hear their stories.
Susan Cantrell is director of campaign communications at Wabash College.