Huckleberry Finn Quotes About Education

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain includes characters that have varying views on the importance of education. Both Huck and Jim seem to value learning through experience, rather than learning from books and school. Also Jim cannot read or write so that inhibits Jim from going to school. Jim is a slave which means he is not allowed to get an education. Tom also enjoys learning from experience rather than books, but he reads more than Huck and it seems that he sometimes values learning from books rather than learning from experience. Tom wants to make his life as extravagant as the stories that he has read.
None of these characters strongly value education as an important aspect of life. Huck and Tom have always been opposed to going to school and becoming “civilized” as they call it. “She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat and feel all cramped up.” ( Twain, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3). This quote shows how much Huck disliked being put up in new clothes for going to school because they

When his dad came to see him when he was staying with the widow, he blew up at Huck, saying that Huck was trying to be better than him and mock him by going to school. That could have been an underlying factor of why Huck might have rejected the idea of structured education. “ You’re educated, too, they say- can read and write,. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because he can’t?”. ( Twain, Chapter 5, Paragraph 4). This quote perfectly summarizes Huck’s dad’s feelings toward him getting an education. Although huck and Tom grew up in the same area their families were quite different. The reader does not get a lot of information on Tom’s background, one could get the feeling that education was not as put down upon as it was in Huck’s