Gustave Le Bon

Those which are good at a given moment for a given people may be harmful in the extreme for another nation.

the latter has only been very slowly changed part by part, under the influence of immediate necessities and never of speculative reasoning.

Peoples are governed by their character, and all institutions which are not intimately modelled on that character merely represent a borrowed garment, a transitory disguise.

-directed instruction may not give very useful practical results, if not in the sense of raising the standard of morality, at least in that of developing professional capacity.

-consists in the fact that it is based on the fundamental psychological error that the intelligence is developed by the learning by heart of text-books. Adopting this view, the endeavour has been made to enforce a knowledge of as many hand-books as possible. From the primary school till he leaves the university a young man does nothing but acquire books by heart without his judgment or personal initiative being ever called into play. Education consists for him in reciting by heart and obeying.

while the most humble members of the middle classes admit of no possible career for their sons except that of State-paid functionaries. Instead of preparing men for life French schools solely prepare them to occupy public functions, in which success can be attained without any necessity for self-direction or the exhibition of the least glimmer of personal initiative.

The conditions of success in life are the possession of judgment, experience, initiative, and character-qualities which are not bestowed by books. Books are dictionaries, which it is useful to consult, but of which it is perfectly useless to have lengthy portions in one’s head.

between truly democratic nations and those who have democracy in their speeches, but in no wise in their thoughts,

If we desire to understand the ideas and beliefs that are germinating to-day in the masses, and will spring up to-morrow, it is necessary to know how the ground has been prepared.

It is in part by instruction and education that the mind of the masses is improved or deteriorated.