The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
Interpretation
Youth education is more important than laws or preaching as it forms the base for both.
Noah Webster emphasizes the critical role that education plays in shaping the future of society. He argues that educating the youth is a fundamental task that supersedes even the making of laws or preaching religious teachings, as it creates the foundational knowledge and values upon which both the law and moral teachings rely for true success in a community.
In practice
In a speech about community development, one might mention this quote to stress the importance of investing in education.
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character.
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground
Nothing has a greater tendency to lessen the reverence which mankind ought to have for the Supreme Being, than a careless repetition of his name upon every trifling occasion . . . . To prevent this profanation, such passages are selected from scripture, as contain some important precepts of morality and religion, in which that sacred name is seldom mentioned. Let sacred things be appropriated to sacred purposes.
To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.
Whatever landscape a child is exposed to early on, that will be the sort of gauze through which he or she will see all the world afterwards.
The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.
Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind [is the ideal of education].
Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.
There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.
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