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.
Interpretation
It takes significant knowledge to teach those who are already educated, but an even greater level of understanding is necessary to reach those who have not received proper guidance.
Horace Mann emphasizes the challenges faced by educators in reaching students who have not had the benefit of previous instruction. He implies that teaching those who have been neglected requires not only a deep understanding of the subject matter but also an awareness of the varied life experiences and backgrounds of those learners. The quote underlines the importance of investing in knowledge and understanding to effectively teach and uplift those who are underserved.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech addressing the importance of educational reform.
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.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate.
Canada sets aside 36 percent of their visas for people with skills they think their country needs. We set aside six percent. We educate the doctors, and then don't give 'em a green card.
In college, I was an education major and qualified for several jobs. But the fame that came with the Olympic medals was too threatening to many people.
What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book - a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.
High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship - nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change.
I love librarians more than any other people in the world. When I was an immigrant kid, theyβve made me feel like a human being and they gave me books that taught me English.
When I am through learning, I am through.
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