Schools should be the most beautiful place in every town and village-so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be barred from going to school the following day.
It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother.
When I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three.... The little advanceI now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
Personality and mind, like moustaches, belong to a certain age. They are a deformity in a child.... Leave his sensibilities, his emotions, his spirit, and his mind severely alone. There is the devil in mothers, that they must provoke personalresponse from their infants.
Most fatal, most hateful of all things is bullying.... Sensual bullying of course is fairly easily detected. What is more dangerous is ideal bullying. Bullying people into what is ideally good for them.
Schools need not preach political doctrine to defend democracy. If they shape men capable of critical thought and trained in social attitudes, that is all that is necessary.
In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity - it is a prerequisite.