Whatever may be the merits of a religious system, its effects upon the mass of mankind must depend in an important degree upon its teachers. All instruction and all truth, except simple mathematical truth, is modified by the medium through which it is conveyed.
Interpretation
The effectiveness of any religious teaching is largely influenced by the teachers themselves.
This quote emphasizes that while a religious system may have inherent value, its true impact on people largely depends on the quality and approach of its teachers. It suggests that the communication of ideas, whether religious or otherwise, is shaped by the individual's ability to convey those truths and that all forms of instruction come with an inherent bias from the teacher's perspective.
In practice
During a seminar on religious education, one could quote this to emphasize the role of teachers.
No government can be strong and flourishing while the national character is weak and degraded. A government must flourish and decay with its subjects; and, when a prince makes a law or performs an action which has a tendency to injure the character or prosperity of the nation, he injures himself.
There are many causes why a people politically ignorant cannot be roused to action. Perfect political ignorance must be accompanied by indifference to the general interests of society, and thus one of the most powerful motives which can act on the human mind is totally destroyed.
Through my education, I didn't just develop skills, I didn't just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence.
My education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund, so a charity school, run like an orphanage, with uniforms and beatings. It was tough, but it got me to Cambridge - like being a chrysalis suddenly becoming a butterfly.
If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.
Whatever the intellectual quality of the education given our children, it is vital that it include elements of love and compassion, for nothing guarantees that knowledge alone will be truly useful to human beings.
I think that the greatest education in the world is the education which helps one to be able to do the right things at the time it has to be done.
Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer.
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