Meaning & Analysis
To do something with the same immense eagerness, enthusiasm, and relief that a child feels when leaving school at the end of the day.
Insights
Unconditional Enthusiasm
The proverb serves as a powerful expression of wholehearted and unreserved enthusiasm for an action. The comparison elevates the feeling of willingness to one of pure, unadulterated joy and eagerness.
Escape from Drudgery
School symbolizes any form of drudgery, confinement, or unpleasant duty. Therefore, the act of leaving it represents a welcome escape, and the proverb can be used to describe eagerness to get away from any undesirable circumstance.
Joy of Liberation
The saying conveys a sense of liberation and freedom. The willingness described is not just simple agreement but a profound desire for the freedom that the action represents, much like a child's release into free play after a day of lessons.
Historical View of Education
This proverb reflects a historical perception of schooling as a rigid, joyless environment, which children would naturally be eager to escape. Its use in literature, notably by Shakespeare, underscores its cultural currency in expressing relief from any unpleasant or obligatory situation.
Psychology of Relief
The expression taps into the universal psychological experience of liberation from constraint. The joy of a child leaving school serves as a powerful and instantly relatable emotional benchmark for enthusiastic willingness.
Ironic Application
The proverb's meaning is amplified through its ironic potential. For instance, in Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew', a character uses it to express relief at leaving a personally humiliating situation, lending a sarcastic layer to the otherwise straightforward expression of eagerness.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is structured as a simile, using 'as...as' to directly compare the speaker's willingness to the universally understood eagerness of a child leaving school.
Hyperbole
The comparison often functions as a hyperbole, exaggerating the speaker's willingness to an extreme degree for emphatic and humorous effect.
Imagery
It evokes a vivid and relatable image of children joyfully escaping the confines of the schoolhouse, making the abstract concept of 'willingness' concrete and emotionally resonant.
Transcription
Quotations
Posies, p. 175: And home we came as children come from schoole.
Will you pledge me? —Yea, with as good a will as euer I came from schoole.
With as good will as e're boy came from schoole.
(I would do it with as).
(I did it with as good will as).
Shakespeare Citations
Signior Gremio, came you from the church? —As willingly as e'er I came from school.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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