No Such Thing as Overeducation

by Eleanor Roosevelt

I should advise any young woman who does not marry to take a deep interest in young people. That way she will have the same satisfaction with other children that she might have had with her own. I should also advise her to build up very warm friendships and cultivate her interest in some kind of work which will tie her down to obligations, so that she will never find time hanging heavily on her hands and feel that her existence is profitless. There is no such thing, from my point of view, as overeducation, nor being above any people because of formal education that you might have been fortunate enough to acquire. Anyone with character and the opportunity can acquire a formal education, and many people who have not had a chance for book learning are wiser than those who have had. If education hasn't given you enough understanding so that you can get on with people around you and appreciate their quality, and perhaps help them through your opportunities to more opportunities of their own, so that their interests may coincide with yours, then I am afraid your education has done you more harm than good.

6S

Eleanor Roosevelt was an American politician, diplomat, writer and activist, and the nation's longest-serving First Lady, from 1933 to 1945. Her six sentences were written in 1948 in response to a young woman who asked for advice on handling loneliness, being unmarried, and whether or not "overeducation" was ill-advised.