I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

The Canadian-born English writer Grant Allen coined it, as far as is known. In the essay ‘Eye versus Ear’ in Post-Prandial Philosophy (1894) he wrote: ‘What a misfortune it is that we should thus be compelled to let our boys’ schooling interfere with their education!’ He reused it in later books; in Rosalba (1899, under the pen name Olive Pratt Rayner) the narrator says ‘No schooling was allowed to interfere with my education.’ The earliest link to Twain found by Quote Investigator is an advertisement for the Daisy air rifle in the Outing Magazine in 1907: ‘Mark Twain once said: “Don’t let your boy’s schooling interfere with his education.”’ The first-person form came later and has no source.

Credited to Twain on school posters and graduation cards, as a boast about his own education: he left school young and learned as a printer and a river pilot. No text of his contains it. Not in any of the fifteen Twain texts in the sources (the word ‘schooling’ occurs, but never in this saying), and TwainQuotes, the main Twain quotation archive, says it ‘should not be regarded as authentic’ until a source is found.

School is only one part of education, and can get in its way.

• The form on posters and social mediaDon’t let schooling interfere with your education. The imperative form, also credited to Twain.
• A misquotationDon’t let your boy’s schooling interfere with his education. The 1907 Daisy air rifle advertisement, the earliest known attribution to Twain. Seen in The Outing Magazine Advertiser, vol. 50 (1907), p. 840, per Quote Investigator.

Wisdom, Education

• Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? (not found) Albert Camus
• You can never be overdressed or overeducated. (paraphrase) Oscar Wilde
• When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better. Mae West
• I have nothing to declare except my genius. (not found) Oscar Wilde
• The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. Fyodor Dostoevsky

• quoteinvestigator.com/2010/09/25/schooling-vs-education
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Attributed to Mark Twain. No. Grant Allen wrote it, not Twain. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/schooling-interfere-with-education/ (checked 20 October 2026).

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