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Richard Mitchell Biography

Dr. Richard Mitchell (April 26, 1929 – December 27, 2002) was a professor, first of English and later of classics, at Glassboro State College in Glassboro, New Jersey. He gained fame in the late 1970s as the founder and publisher of The Underground Grammarian, a newsletter of opinion and criticism that ran until 1992, and wrote four books expounding his views on the relationships among language, education, and ethics.

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Richard Mitchell Quotes

His jargon conceals, from him, but not from us, the deep, empty hole in his mind. He uses technological language as a substitute for technique.

Language, Mind, Technique, Technological, Use

An education that does not teach clear, coherent writing cannot provide our world with thoughtful adults; it gives us instead, at the best, clever children of all ages.

Adults, Children, Clever, Teach, Writing

In a government institution, there is only one area in which problems are taken seriously, and that is the political. Many of the strange things done in American educationism suddenly become perfectly understandable when we see them not as educational methods but as political maneuvers. We must understand illiteracy, therefore, the root of ignorance and thoughtlessness, as not some inadvertent failure to accomplish what was intended but simply a political arrangement of great value to somebody.

Accomplish, Educational, Government, Ignorance, Seriously, Taken

People who cannot put strings of sentences together in good order cannot think. An educational system that does not teach the technology of writing is preventing thought.

Educational, Sentences, System, Technology, Writing

Where once a tyrant had to wish that his subjects had but one common neck that he might strangle them all at once, all he has to do now is to 'educate the people' so that they will have but one common mind to delude.

People, School, Strangle, Tyrant, Tyrants, Wish

When we find ourselves wondering about the meaning of conditions and events, its always useful to ask, who profits?

Ask, Events, Society, Useful, Wonder, Wondering

Some minds, at some point, discover that they can not make sense of their own predications without attention to grammar, although they do not ordinarily think of what they are doing as an exercise in grammar.

Although, Exercise, Mind, Point, Think, Thinking

The feelings, sentiments, values and responses of our children, or of any citizen, are none of the government's damned business. That we must support a government agency that gives itself to the emotional and ideological manipulation of citizens is infamous.

Agency, Children, Citizen, Emotional, Infamous, Sentiments

If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave.

Language, Master, Masters, Slave

Clear language engenders clear thought, and clear thought is the most important benefit of education.

Benefits, Clear, Education, Important, Language, Thought

Education, I am convinced, must be nothing more than this: The journey toward the limits of Reason, if any there be.

Convinced, Education, Journey, Limits, Reason, Toward

Educationists are entertaining. We can always find a good laugh in their prose, with its special, ludicrous combination of ignorance and pretentiousness.

Combination, Good, Ignorance, Laughing, Pretentiousness, Special

You can shoot the tiger, or stay out of his way, but you cannot pronounce him a vegetarian.

Shoot, Society, Stay, Vegetarian, Way

Who speaks reason to his fellow man bestows it upon them.

Bestows, Fellow Man, Man, Men, Speak, Speaks

There is only one remedy for ignorance and thoughtlessness, and that is literacy. Millions and millions of children would today stand in no need of sex education or consumer education or anti-racism education or any of those fake educations, if they had had in the first place 'an' education.

Children, Consumer, Education, Sex, Stand

If you want to predict the future of our land, go to school and look around.

Future, Land, Look, Looks, Predict, School

If you should prefer to understand that children are those human beings who have not yet found the grasp of their own minds, then the task you have given yourself, that task of rearing a child wisely and well, is suddenly transformed from indoctrination to education, in its truest sense, and made not only possible but even likely--provided, to be sure, one little prerequisite, which is that you are not a child, that you have come into the grasp of your mind.

Children, Found, Mind, Possible, Tasks, Truest

We should. . . be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we do not love.

Asking, Justice, Served, State, Value, Would Be

Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact.

Birth Control, Control, Fact, Facts, Long