"Maxims to Live By: The Art and Science of Teaching Wise Sayings"

We are happy to share with you an excerpt from "Maxims to Live By: Understanding the art and science of teaching wise sayings," by Arthur J. Schwartz, Ed.D., and F. Clark Power, Ed.D.. The chapter appears in Understanding Wisdom: Sources, Science, and Society, edited by Warren Brown, Jr. and published by the Templeton Foundation Press. The book will be on sale in June, 2000.

Introduction

There is something universal about seeking and giving advice. Whether beginning elementary school or launching a new business, we seem to have an insatiable appetite for improving ourselves (and others) through proverbial “words of wisdom.” Not that we always heed what we hear; there is some truth to that venerable saying, “In one ear and out the other.” In one of his Poor Richard stories, Benjamin Franklin describes a crowd of people waiting for the market to open; they ask an old man how they should live during the hard times. The old man responds by offering keen-witted maxims about frugality and temperance. Franklin writes: “[T]he people heard it, and approved the doctrine . . . and immediately practiced the contrary . . . [for when the market opened], they began to buy extravagantly, notwithstanding all his cautions” (cited in Clark, 1983).

Franklin’s anecdote reminds us that some of us profit from wise sayings—and some of us do not. Why is this so? Is there a scientific explanation as to why some of us do (or do not) effectively learn, memorize, and employ maxims? In terms of educating young people, are there certain kinds of situations or circumstances in which they are more likely to use a maxim as a source of motivation or moral direction? Does it matter how—or from whom—a young person learns the maxim? Although many researchers (linguistic anthropologists, social historians, and paremiologists) over the last half-century have generated a rich body of historical and cross-cultural scholarship on the enduring nature of “wise sayings,” comparatively little literature exists on the science and art of teaching young people practical moral principles encapsulated in maxims and proverbs. By examining pertinent research in the fields of learning theory and linguistics, as well as theories of memory and moral development, this study seeks to further our psychological and pedagogical understanding of how young people learn, memorize, and employ “wise sayings” that reflect moral and motivational significance for them.

To read the rest of this chapter and others written by scholars from the fields of theology, philosophy, medicine, biology, psychology and linguistics who are examining the origin and nature of wisdom, please contact the Templeton Foundation Press.