Wednesday, May 27, 2009

May 27: Lessing's Courageous Stand for Toleration (Vol. 32, pp. 185-195)

"Education is Revelation." That's how Gotthold Ephraim Lessing begins his essay, "The Education of the Human Race."

The piece degenerates into an analysis of the Old Testament. It becomes just another religious tract, until you read a little past today's assignment and find he gets back to the importance of education — that it is a belief in the future and in the steady improvement of the human race, not because it might result in eternal life, but because it might also make for a better life in this realm.

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