DiotimosReading Desk

Childhood and education

School

school; schools; tutor; learning — institutions of instruction and patterns of discipleship

School can mean a place of teaching or a learned tradition with recognized maxims.

From the book

Centuries of Meditations

Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordSchool can mean a place of teaching or a learned tradition with recognized maxims.
  • In TraherneThe opening challenge to a maxim of the schools establishes an important method: inherited propositions must be tested against the actual life of desire.
  • In this editionThe schools in I.2 and III.20 means received learned doctrine, not necessarily one identifiable classroom or institution.
  • A place to beginExperience of unknown goods qualifies a maxim attributed to the schools.

Meaning

School can mean a place of teaching or a learned tradition with recognized maxims. Figuratively, an object or event can become a school through the lessons it supplies.

Use in the book

The opening challenge to a maxim of the schools establishes an important method: inherited propositions must be tested against the actual life of desire. Elsewhere conventional learning can neglect the very end that should organize it, the attainment of felicity. Traherne nevertheless values the knowledge that education awakens and does not dismiss reasoned inquiry.

The Cross is the exemplary school of virtues. Its suffering teaches patience, charity, courage, and the right use of the whole world. This instruction differs from the burdensome school remembered in the account of alienation because its relation to life’s end is visible. Learning becomes fruitful when its objects are received as one’s own concern rather than as material for display.

Places to read

  1. I.2Experience of unknown goods qualifies a maxim attributed to the schools.
  2. I.58The Cross is a school of virtues.
  3. III.14School is remembered as a burden during the period of false valuation.
  4. III.37University learning is criticized for failing to teach felicity as its end.

In this edition

The schools in I.2 and III.20 means received learned doctrine, not necessarily one identifiable classroom or institution. The autobiographical uses are more literal.

Source note

Primary text: I.2, I.58, III.14, III.37, III.20. No 2026 editorial notes used.