Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
Interpretation
Education serves as a powerful tool to level the playing field among individuals and society.
Horace Mann emphasizes the transformative power of education in society, arguing that it is the most effective means of promoting equality among people, regardless of their background. He suggests that education acts as a balancing force within the social system, enabling individuals to rise above their circumstances and fostering a more just and equitable society.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech at a graduation ceremony to inspire new graduates about the importance of their education.
Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
There may be frugality which is not economy. A community, that withholds the means of education from its children, withholds the bread of life and starves their souls.
Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly - and with very little financial encouragement - saving lives and minds. I canβt think of a more efficient, hopeful or egalitarian machine, with the possible exception of the bicycle.
If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle them, and, as it were, fondle them. Let them fall open where they will. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas.
As we segregate by income into different communities, schools in lower-income areas have fewer resources than ever.
Christian mothers, if only you knew the future of distress and peril, of shame ill-restrained, that you prepare for your sons and daughters in imprudently accustoming them to live hardly clothed and in making them lose the sense of modesty, you should be ashamed of yourselves and of the harm done the little ones whom heaven entrusted to your care, to be reared in Christian dignity and culture.
What children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone
We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It's experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.
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