Mary Wollstonecraft Is the Bomb

That Mary Wollstonecraft had got it going on. Of course she was instrumental in the fight for women's rights, but I just read some of her work on education and it's not only wise beyond her years, it's still wise beyond OUR years. She called for nationally financed public education, which would help correct the gross inequity in our current methods of funding education. She wrote of the importance of a good home as a precondition for good education. She warned of the dangers of schools trying to sell themselves, of being nothing more than a PR machine, instead of actually educating the students. She warned of the superficiality of busying your mind without ever thinking deeply (internet anyone? video games anyone? YouTube anyone? multitasking anyone?). Heck, she even throws in a bit out having a moral relationship with animals.

And all this was very, very radical for its time. For the late 1700's.

Too radical for her society. Still too radical (or makes too much sense) for our society. We don't suffer innovation very well, to which Ms. Mary W. would say:

"But the fear of innovation, in this country, extends to every thing.--This is only a covert fear, the apprehensive timidity of indolent slugs, who guard, by sliming it over, the snug place."