If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to put the police at the gates
to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of
learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that
you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place
of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous
amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be
created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor
accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it
is an ungracious to work to put on a professor.
Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.
- William Yeats
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch
Is not My word like fire?
R. Abbahu said that R. Eleazar said: The fire of Gehinnom has no power over Torah Scholars. It is an ad majus conclusion [drawn] from the salamander. If now the salamander, which is an offspring of fire, one who anoints himself with its blood is not affected by fire, how much more so the Torah Scholars, whose whole body is fire, for it is written: Is not My word like as fire? said the Lord.
(Jer. 23:29)
Raba further said: If a young scholar ( tzurba mrabbanan -lit. someone on fire from the sages) gets into a rage it is because the Torah inflames him, as it is said, Is not my word like a fire? said the Lord.
-Ta'anit 4a
-Chagigah 27a