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In The Schoolmaster, written in 1570, Roger Ascham compares schooling to experience, and he takes the stance that learning is much more desirable than experience. He argues that a man will learn more within a year than he would in twenty years of experience, that experience is dangerous while learning is safe, and that man will only become miserable because of his experiences. Ascham's beliefs are true, but his principles can only relate to a man …

…not teach more in one year than experience does in twenty, learning may be safe but safety is just a cover, and the wisdom gained through experience well worth the misery that must be endured. Rather than We must all live by Thoreau's belief that, "...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."