School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.
Interpretation
Education is not just about buildings and resources; it's about the nurturing of the human spirit through knowledge and learning.
This quote emphasizes the essential role of educators and the human element in the learning process. It suggests that physical schools and educational tools are inactive without the passionate guidance of trained individuals who foster intellectual and moral growth in students, regardless of their background. The essence of education is not in the infrastructure but in the commitment to developing thoughtful, capable individuals who can contribute positively to society.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students about the importance of their teachers.
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools - intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it - this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.
Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.
For most people, it is enough for the world to know that they aspire. The world does not ask what their aspirations are, trusting that those aspirations are for the best and greatest things. But with regard to the Negroes in America, there is a feeling that their aspirations in some way are not consistent with the great ideals.
For fifteen years, I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder.
The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
Children have a master to teach them, grown-ups have the poets.
The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.
Learn to listen with your fingers.
Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.
We are in a great school, and we should be diligent to learn, and continue to store up the knowledge of heaven and of earth, and read good books, although I cannot say that I would recommend the reading of all books, for it is not all books which are good. Read good books, and extract from them wisdom and understanding as much as you possibly can, aided by the Spirit of God. (JD 12:124)
Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.
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