1)     Descartes’s opinion of the relationship between experience and knowledge differs from Locke’s in a few ways.  Descartes, although enthusiastic about how we learn the most through day to day experiences, puts an emphasis on how education grants pupils with better ability to process thoughts and experiences.  He looks at schooling as something helpful, but not necessary to the learning process, an example being the passage that starts with him saying “I was aware that the languages taught in them (schools) are necessary to the understanding of the writings of the ancients”, concluding; “but I believed that I had already given sufficient time to languages” (Part 1).  Descartes doesn’t dismiss schooling entirely, but notes that his own investigation of the “book of the world” accompanied him “with greater success than it would have been had I never quitted my country or my books” (1).
Locke is adamant about the importance of experience, but describes it in a more visceral, simplistic way.  He highlights the role our senses play in our ability to process information and “furnish” the “white page” of our minds (2, Book II, Ch. I).  Regarding the innateness of thoughts, I think the two men can agree that, in a nature vs. nurture sense, a person is shaped more by their experiences than their nature.  Descartes, in the fourth paragraph of Section II, discusses “the very different characters” he observed through his travels.  That, after observing people of similar minds raised in different countries, significant differences can be found.

2)   A maxim that shapes many parts of society is the principle that we should treat others how we’d like to be treated ourselves.  The only way to process this maxim however, is through experience.  Only through experience do we learn what we like, and don’t like in our interactions with others.  Without engaging in life outside of school, their is no way to gauge our own needs and desires, and in turn how we should treat those around us.