There has been much talk recently aboutwhether we should learn from books or we should learn from experience.Somepeople think that learning from experience is more important while others holdthe different opinions. Personally, I side with the former, in the belief thatexperience is the best teacher.
Admittedly, learning from books, asadvocated by many, has its active role to play in our academic life. It can putus in touch with the great minds and arm our heads with massive knowledge.
However, there are numerous merits forlearning from experience,too. First things first, experience is the source of knowledge andunderstanding as well as meaning. Nowhere can the importance of learning fromexperience be described so vividly and accurately as in the old saying- “Nothingever becomes real till it is experienced”. Take the human progress as anillustration. Dating back to hundreds of thousands years ago, we human beingswere utterly ignorant. But by incessant practices, our ancestors cumulatedmassive experience, from which they acquired a great amount of knowledge,transforming our world from a primitive society into a highly-developed one.Second, unlike the theories recorded in books, experiences can apply topractical use. When we are at work, what we need is the experience of practicalapplication instead of the abstract theories in our books.
Taking all these into account, we can drawa conclusion that learning from experience is more important than learning frombooks. Always remember the old saying given by Einstein——“The only source ofknowledge is experience. ”