Quotes on Education
“Children should be educated and instructed in the principle of freedom.”
— John Adams (1797-
“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”
— George Washington (1732-
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be aid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.”
—Gouverneur Morris (1752-
“No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
— Proverbs 1:7 RSV
“Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors.”
— John Adams (1797-
“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
— Northwest Ordinance –
“The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right [religious] education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail.”
— George Washington (1732-
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free. It expects what never was and never will be.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the U. S
“Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. …It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”
— George Washington (1732-
“The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.”
— Fisher Ames (1758-
“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.”
— Noah Webster (1758-
“It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saint-
— The Old Deluder Satan Act –
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
— Ephesians 6:11-
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-
“The education of young citizens ought to form them to good manners, to accustom them to labor, to inspire them with a love of order, and to impress them with respect for. lawful authority. Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man towards God.
These duties are, internally, love and adoration; externally, devotion and obedience; therefore provision should bo made for maintaining divine worship as well as education. But each one has a right to entire liberty as to religion opinions, for religion is the relation between God and man ; therefore it is not within the reach of human authority.”
— Gouverneur Morris (1752-
“The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.”
— Benjamin Rush (1745-
“To a man of liberal education, the study of history is not only useful, and important, but altogether indispensable, and with regard to the history contained in the Bible …it is not so much praiseworthy to be acquainted with as it is shameful to be ignorant of it.”
— John Quincy Adams, (1767-
“A primary object … should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing … than … communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
— George Washington (1732-
“To a man of liberal education, the study of history is not only useful, and important, but altogether indispensable, and with regard to the history contained in the Bible, the observation which Cicero makes respecting that of his own country is much more emphatically applicable, that ‘it is not so much praiseworthy to be acquainted with as it is shameful to be ignorant of it.”
— John Quincy Adams, (1767-
“It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail. The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always observable, that those who are combin’d to destroy the people’s liberties, practice every art to poison their morals.”
— Samuel Adams (1722–1803) Father of the American Revolution, Patriot and Statesman
“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals and morals are the only possible support of free governments. Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”
— Gouverneur Morris (1752-
(Jefferson’s argument for teaching of a religious education and of truth)
“The relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being and the most incumbent on his study and investigation.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-
“A nation of well-
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-
“No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the U. S.
“Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.”
— George Washington (1732-
“If they proceed in it (reomving the Bible from school), they will do more in half a century in extirpating our religion than Bolingbroke or Voltaire could have effected in a thousand years. …I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.”
— Benjamin Rush (1745-
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!”
— Patrick Henry (1736-
“He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-
“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”
— George Washington (1732-
“Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.”
— Noah Webster (1758-
“A satisfactory plan for primary education is certainly a vital desideratum in our republics. A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
— James Madison (1751-
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the U. S.
“But while property is considered as the basis of the freedom of the American yeomanry, there are other auxiliary supports; among which is the information of the people. In no country, is education so general –
— Noah Webster (1758-
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary –
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed. …No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
EDUCATION: The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohammed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place is the religion of Jesus Christ. It is foreign to my purpose to hint at the arguments which establish the truth of the Christian revelation. My only business is to declare that all its doctrines and precepts are calculated to promote the happiness of society and the safety and well-
— Benjamin Rush (1745-
“I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the education of youth, than from exhortations of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for use of them, is as strongly called as if he heard a voice from heaven. .”
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-
“If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity.”
— Daniel Webster (1782-
“I call upon you also to support schools in all your towns, that the rising generation may not grow up in ignorance. Grudge not any expence proportionate to your abilities. It is a debt you owe to your children, and that God to whom they belong; a necessary evidence of your regard for their present and future happiness, and of your concern to transmit the blessings you yourselves enjoy to future generations. The human mind without early and continual cultivation grows wild and savage: knowledge must be instilled as its capacities gradually enlarge, or it cannot expand and extend its sphere of activity. Without instruction men can have no knowledge but what comes from their own observation and experience, and it will be a long time before they can be acquainted even with things most necessary for the support and comfort of the present life. Leave your children untaught to read, write, cypher, &c. teach them no trade, or husbandry; let them grow up wholly without care; and they will be more fit for a savage than civil life, and whatever inheritance you may think to leave them will be of no advantage.
But, on the contrary, train them up in the fear of God, in an acquaintance with his word, and all such useful knowledge as your abilities will allow, and they will soon know how to provide for themselves, perhaps may take care of their aged parents, and fill the various stations in life with honor and advantage. Look round and see the growing youth: they are to succeed in your stead; government and religion must be continued by them; from among these will shortly rise up our legislators, judges, ministers of the gospel, and officers of every rank. Can you think of this, and not promote schools, academies, and colleges? Can you leave the youth uninstructed in any thing which may prepare them to act their part well in the world? Will you suffer ignorance to spread its horrid gloom over the land? An ignorant people will easily receive idolatry for their religion, and must bow their necks to the tyrant’s yoke, because they are incapable of using rational liberty. Will you then consign over your posterity to foolish and abominable superstitions instead of religion, and to be the slaves of despotism, when a small proportion of the produce of your labours will make them wise, free, and happy?”
— Samuel Langdon (1723-
“I think with you , that nothing is more important for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms.”
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-
“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.”
— Noah Webster (1758-
“Should you enter upon the course of studies here marked out, you must consider it as the finishing of your education, and, therefore, as the time is limited, that every hour misspent is lost for ever, and that future years cannot compensate for lost days at this period of your life. This reflection must show the necessity of an unremitting application to your studies. To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe, that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important, that you should endeavor not only to be learned, but virtuous. Much more might be said to show the necessity of application and regularity; but when you must know, that without them you can never be qualified to render service to your country, assistance to your friends, or consolation to your retired moments, nothing further need be said to prove their utility.”
— George Washington (1732-
“Our liberty depends on our education, our laws and habits, to which even prejudices yield; on the dispersion of our people on farms, and on the almost equal diffusion of property; it is founded on morals and religion [Bible] , whose authority reigns in the heart; and on the influence all these produce on public opinion, before that opinion governs rulers. Here liberty is restraint; there it is violence; here it is mild and cheering, like the morning sun of our summer, brightening the hills and making the valleys green; there it is like the sun, when his rays dart pestilence on the sands of Africa. American liberty calms and restrains the licentious passions, like an angel, that says to the winds and troubled seas.”
— Fisher Ames (1758-
“The bringing up, as of a child; instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.”
— Noah Webster (1758-
“The impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such, endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time: that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher (or public school) for his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor (or private school) whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and in withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-
“It has always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret with me that the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education. Although there are many who escape the danger of contracting principles unfavorable to republican governments, yet we ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds from being too strongly and too early prejudiced in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.”
— George Washington (1732-
“The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it.”
— James Madison (1751-
“Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shown, that even under the best forms those intrusted with power have in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed the most effectual means of preventing this would be to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exort their natural powers to defeat its purposes; and whereas it is generally true that the people will be happiest whoso laws are best, and are best administered, and that laws will be wisely formed and honestly administered in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness, that those persons whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered, by liberal education, worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow-
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-
“A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.”
— Thomas Paine (1736-
“From all that I had read of history and government, of human life and manners, I had drawn this conclusion, that the manners of women were the most infallible barometer to ascertain the degree of morality and virtue in a nation. All that I have since read, and all the observations I have made in different nations, have confirmed me in this opinion. The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not. The Jews, the –
What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money; and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.
The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families. In vain are schools, academies, and universities, instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years. The mothers are the earliest and most important instructors of youth. The vices and examples of the parents cannot be concealed from the children. How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the sacred obligations of morality or religion, if, from their earliest infancy, they learn that their mothers live in habitual infidelity to then fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers? Besides, the catholic doctrine is, that the contract of marriage is not only a civil and moral engagement, but a sacrament; one of the most solemn vows and oaths of religious devotion. Can they then believe religion, and morality too, anything more than a veil, a cloak, a hypocritical pretext, for political purposes of decency and conveniency?”
— John Adams (1797-
“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
— Theodore Roosevelt (1901-
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States were men were free.”
— Ronald Reagan (1911-
“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.”
— James Wilson (1742-
“Education is useless without the Bible.”
— Daniel Webster (1782-
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
— Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) Sixteenth President of the United States
“Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”
— Rev. Jonathan Dickinson (1688–1747) Minister and First President of Princeton University
“Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ; cursed be all that learning that is not coincident with the cross of Christ; cursed be all that learning that is not subservient to the cross of Christ.”
— John Witherspoon (1722-
“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”
— John Adams (1797-
“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.”
— John Adams (1797-
“The good education of youth has been esteemed by wise men in all ages, as the surest foundation of the happiness both of private families and of common-
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-
“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.”
— Noah Webster (1758-
“To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-
“Laws for the liberal* education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.”
— John Adams (1797-
*Liberal – Websters 1828 Dictionary –
**“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” — Proverbs 1:7 RSV)(“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” — Northwest Ordinance –
“Wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education, in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislatures and magistrates…to cherish the interests of literature, and the sciences, and all seminaries of learning. … You have put upon us by your legislation an immense mass of ignorant voters. They have not wisdom, they have not knowledge, some of them even have no virtue, as is the case in every community. These are not diffused among them; from the very nature of the case it cannot be; and yet how anxiously you guard their rights to go to the polls to make laws for us and to regulate our affairs. You have, it may be wisely or unwisely, excluded them from the polls in your States. They must have something of this wisdom, something of this knowledge, something of this virtue there, before you permit them to go to your polls.”
— John Adams (1797-
“The infant periods of most nations are buried in silence, or veiled in fable; and perhaps the world may have lost but little which it need regret. The origin and outset of the American Republic contain lessons of which posterity ought not to be deprived; and, happily, there never was a case in which a knowledge of every interesting incident could be so accurately preserved. You have lights, I am persuaded, which ought not to be forever under a bushel.”
— James Madison (1751-
“An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. … We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom-
“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.”
— James Wilson (1742-
“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops –
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) Author, Poet, and Philosopher
“So, we’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important: Why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-
— Ronald Reagan (1911-
“The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Dutch, all lost their public spirit, their republican principles and habits, and their republican forms of government when they lost the modesty and domestic virtues of their women. The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families. In vain are schools, academies, and universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years. The mothers are the earliest and most important instructors of youth. The vices and examples of the parents can not be concealed from the children. The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity.”
— John Adams (1797-
“My wish is not to see the Bible excluded from schools but to see it used as a system of religion and morality.”
— Noah Webster (1758-
“The Bible is the best of books, and I wish it were in the hands of every one. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions. A free government can not exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best school book in the world. I would that all our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book.”
— Zachary Taylor (1784–1850) 12th President of the United States and military leader
“A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.”
— Thomas Paine (1736-
“Human life, from the cradle to the grave, is a school. At every period of his existence man wants a teacher. His pilgrimage upon earth is but a term of childhood, in which he is to be educated for the manhood of a brighter world. As the child must be educated for manhood upon earth, so the man must be educated upon earth, for heaven; and finally that where the foundation is not laid in time, the superstructure can not rise for eternity.”
— John Quincy Adams, (1767-
“With the history of men, times, and nations, should be read at proper hours or days, some of the best histories of nature, which would not only be delightful to youth, and furnish Morality, by descanting and making continual observations on the causes of the rise or fall of any man’s character, fortune, and power, mentioned in history; the advantages of temperance, order, frugality, industry, and perseverance. Indeed, the general natural tendency of reading good history must be, to fix in the minds of youth deep impressions of the beauty and usefulness of virtue of all kinds, public spirit, and fortitude. …
History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion, from its usefulness to the public; the advantage of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition, and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.
History will also give occasion to expatiate on the advantage of civil orders and constitutions; how men and their properties are protected by joining in societies and establishing government; their industry encouraged and rewarded, arts invented, and life made more comfortable; the advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good laws and a due execution of justice. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth.
On historical occasions, questions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, will naturally arise, and may be put to youth, which they may debate in conversation and in writing. When they ardently desire victory, for the sake of the praise attending it, they will begin to feel the want, and be sensible of the use, of logic, or the art of reasoning to discover truth, and of arguing to defend it, and convince adversaries. This would be the time to acquaint them with the principles of that art. Grotius, Puffendorff, and some other writers of the same kind, may be used on these occasions to decide their disputes. Public disputes warm the imagination, whet the industry, and strengthen the natural abilities.
When youth are told, that the great men, whose lives and actions they read in history, spoke two of the best languages that ever were, the most expressive, copious, beautiful; and that the finest writings, the most correct compositions, the most perfect productions of human wit and wisdom, are in those languages, which have endured for ages, and will endure while there are men; that no translation can do them justice, or give the pleasure found in reading the originals; that those languages contain all science; that one of them is become almost universal, being the language of learned men in all countries; and that to understand them is a distinguishing ornament; they may be thereby made desirous of learning those languages, and their industry sharpened in the acquisition of them. All intended for divinity, should be taught the Latin and Greek; for physic, the Latin, Greek, and French; for law, the Latin and French; merchants, the French, German, and Spanish; and, though all should not be compelled to learn Latin, Greek, or the modern foreign languages, yet none that have an ardent desire to learn them should be refused; their English, arithmetic, and other studies absolutely necessary, being at the same time not neglected.
If the new Universal History were also read, it would give a connected idea of human affairs, so far as it goes, which should be followed by the best modern histories, particularly of our mother country; then of these colonies; which should be accompanied with observations on their rise, increase, use to Great Britain, encouragements and discouragements, the means to make them flourish, and secure their liberties.”
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-
“If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, and the people do not become religious, I do not know what is to become of us as a nation. And the thought is one to cause solemn reflection on the part of every patriot and Christian. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and his word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt through the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end.”
— Daniel Webster (1782-
“You this day, gentlemen, assume new characters, enter into new relations, and consequently incur new duties. You have, by the favor of Providence and the attention of your friends, received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country. You have this day invited this audience to witness the progress you have made, the literary honors conferred upon you, and qualifications with which you are dismissed to take to your station in society ….
Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and conduct. Imprint deep upon your minds the principles of piety towards God, and a reverence and fear of His holy name. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and its consummation is everlasting felicity. Possess yourselves of just and elevated notions of the Divine character, attributes, and administration, and of the end and dignity of your own immortal nature as it stands related to Him …
As citizens, you are under every obligation, human and divine, to exert every facility that God had blessed you with, to promote, as far as possible, the peace, prosperity, and happiness of your country, and to devote all your talents and acquisitions, and even life itself, if needed in its service: to awaken continually in your own bosoms, and to diffuse, as far as possible, around you every principle of public virtue and love of country that they may be drawn forth into action, to effectuate and accomplish that great and glorious and godlike design, the general happiness of civil society and universal felicity of all mankind.
Such, gentlemen, are the obligations you are under. These are the duties which you have in this respectable presence pledge yourself to perform as far as a gracious Providence shall enable you to give you opportunity to discharge them. This is an field for the display of all your talents and all your virtues. Cultivate it, I beseech you, diligently. Your honor and reputation in life demand it of you…. Study carefully the fundamental principles of civil government, especially Republican Government. Make yourself well acquainted with the true nature of civil liberty, which, fond as we all justly are to it, too many seem to be unacquainted with. … See whether true Liberty does not consist in an exact obedience to law [divine]. …
Desert not your station you have assumed, the post which Providence hath assigned you, —but go forth into the world firmly resolved neither to be allured by its vanities nor contaminated by its vices, but run with patience and perseverance, with firmness and alacrity, the glorious career of Religion, honor, and virtue. I say again, the glorious career of Religion, honor, and virtue, for in this career alone, be assured, is the true glory to be acquired, real glory and honor in this life, and every lasting glory and felicity in the life to come…. The God of peace shall be with you, to whose most gracious protection I now command you, humbly imploring Almighty Goodness that He will be your guardian and your guide, your protector and the rock of defense, your Saviour and your God.”
— William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819) Founding Father, first president of King’s College (later Columbia College and University)
“We live in an impatient age. We demand results. We find a long and laborious process very irksome, and are constantly seeking for a short cut. But there is no easy method of securing discipline. It is axiomatic that there is no royal road to learning. The effort for discipline must be intensive, and to a considerable degree it must be lifelong. But it is absolutely necessary if there is to be any self-
— Calvin Coolidge (1872-
“Seek truth while you are young, for if you do not, it will later escape your grasp”
— Plato (427BC-
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
— Proverbs 22:6 RSV
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”
— Mark 9:42 RSV
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
— Matthew 18:6 RSV
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame.”
— Hosea 4:6-
“Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.”
— Benjamin Rush (1745-
“I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one place his child where Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.”
— Martin Luther (1483-
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”
— C.S. Lewis (1898 -1963) Irish Writer, Scholar, and Christian Apologists
“His glory (Jesus Christ) does not consist in beingplaced without the confines of history; a more real worship is paid to him, by showing that the whole of history is incomprehensible without him.”
— Joseph Ernest Renan (1823-
“No Nation can long survive if it teaches its children to hate their ancesters and be ashamed of their heritage and that is exactly what we are doing in America today.”
— John Eidsmoe, Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, Constitutional Attorney & Author
“America’s future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.”
— Jane Addams (1860–1935) Active in the Women Suffrage movement & First American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize
“You see, from the beginning, the goal was never about education, it has always been about indoctrination. That is why our kids know everyting about sex and nothing about history.”
— Molotov Mitchell
“Education is a system of imposed ignorance.”
― Noam Chomsky (1928) American Philospher, Linguist & Political Commentator
“Historical writing that is not just, that is not impartial, that is not fearless,—looking beyond the interest of neighborhood, the claims of party, or the solicitations of pride,—is worse that useless to mankind.”(Boston, July, 1854)
— George Ticknor Curtis (1812-
“Public education today doesn’t honor God, doesn’t recognize God, in truth doesn’t really want there to be a God.”
— David, Kupelian, Author of the book The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-
“Recent decades clearly demonstrate that the more secular our Public Schools become the less successful they become academically.”
— David Barton, Author and Public Speaker on America’s Biblical Heritage
“To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-
“The Bible ought to be read. … it is an education in itself.”
— Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) English Poet
“I want to make one thing clear. This war against our constitution is not being fought way off in Madagascar or in Mandalay. It is being fought here—in our schools, our colleges, our churches, our women’s clubs. It is being fought with our money, channeled through the State Department. It is being fought twenty-
— Senator William Ezra Jenner (1908-
“Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”
— Ignatius Loyola (1491-
“The falsification of history has done more to impede human development than any one thing known to mankind.”
— Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-
“I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That [government] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them [citizens] in perpetual childhood (concern for America’s future compared to this problem in Europe): it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government (nanny State) willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?”
— Alexis de Toqueville (1805-
“Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.”
— Vladimir Lenin (1870-
“Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”
— Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953) Dictator & Russian political leader of the USSR
“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”
— Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953) Dictator & Russian political leader of the USSR
“We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.”(credited)
— Nikita Khrushchev (1894-
“The United States will eventually fly the Communist red flag. The American people will hoist it themselves.”
— Nikita Khrushchev (1894-
“History is politics projected into the past.”
— M.N. Pokrovsky (1868 –
Communist Manifesto
“We destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
The bourgeois clap-
“I marveled a bit at the feat [Lubianka re-
— Walter J. Ciszek Jr (1904-
“What actually happens now, that unlike myself, you have literally several years to live on unless the United States wakes up. The time bomb it ticking. With every second the disaster is coming closer and closer. Unlike myself, you will have is nowhere to defect to, unless you want to live in untenable options. This is the last country of freedom and possibility. …there must be a national effort to educate people in the spirit of real patriotism number one. And number two, explain to them the real danger of socialist communist state welfare state, big brother government. If people will fail to grasp the impending danger of that development, nothing ever can help the United States. You may kiss goodbye to your freedoms … all this freedom will evaporate in five seconds including your precious lives.”
— Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov (1939-
“That is what we have in revisionist historians. It starts with their own atheism, their own unbelief, and then they go back and attempt to revise and rewrite history in their own image.”
— D. James Kennedy (1930–2007) Pastor, Broadcaster, and founder of the Coral Ridge Church
“Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.” “He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.”
— George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-
“Public education founder C. F. Potter stated that one hour of Sunday School cannot possibly stem the tide of five days of humanist education. You see, from the beginning, the goal was never about education, it has always been about indoctrination. That is why our kids know everyting about sex and nothing out history..”
— Molotov Mitchell –
“I’ve never let my school interfere with my education
— Mark Twain (1835-
“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
— C.S. Lewis (1898 -1963) Irish Writer, Scholar, and Christian Apologists
“Without education we are in the horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”
— G.K. Chesterton (1874-
“The right of the parent over the child is prior to the right of the State. Where the State compels the parent to send its child to an institution which he must attend for many hours of the day and by which his mind cannot but be formed at the most critical period in its development, the parent has a right to demand of the State that the institution shall be of a kind he approves of. In the particular case of the Catholic parent living under the authority of an anti-
The education of the child belongs properly to the parent, and not to the State. The family is prior to the State in right, and this is particularly true of rights over children. …Of course, if you argue from the premise that the English polity is not anti-
— Hilaire Belloc [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc] (1870-
“God has something valuable through every race in the world to teach the other races. …God brings the best out of the races and everyone can learn from every race. And what toleration and multiculturalism does is simply say you can not condemn anything that any race has produced. You can’t say this is hedonism this is wrong; you have to except everything as equal. That is multiculturalism. That means we can’t call sin, sin, can we. You have to say your unique expression of your creativity.”
— Paul Jehle –
“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.”
— Lord Brougham (1778-
“Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.”
— Benjamin Disraeli (1804-
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
— George Santayana (1863-
“A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.”
— John Stuart Mill (1806-
“Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are the following: The schools, colleges and universities will be coordinated and grouped under the National Department of Education and its state and local branches.
The studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught on the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society.”
— William Foster (1881-
“You can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”
— John Dewey (1859-
“God was pitched out of forced schooling on his ear after WWII. This wasn’t because of any constitutional proscription—there was none that anyone had been able to find in over a century and a half—but because the political state and corporate economy considered the Western spiritual tradition too dangerous a competitor. And it is.”
— John Taylor Gatto (1935-
“Take away the heritage of a people and they are easily destroyed.”
— Karl Marx (1652–1725) Father of Communism, Atheist, Humanist, Political Economist & Sociologist
“Education, you know, means broadening, advancing, and if you limit a teacher to only one side of anything the whole country will eventually have only one thought, be one individual. I believe in teaching.”
— John Thomas Scopes (1900–1970) Teacher in Dayton, Tennessee (charged for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in school. He was tried in a case known as the Scopes Monkey Trial)
“….government schooling made people dumber, not brighter; made families weaker; ruined formal religion with its hard-
— John Taylor Gatto (1935-
“There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes.”
— John Dewey (1859-
“We have created an educational system, funded throughout the country by taxpayer dollars, that systematically turns our children away from the truth that makes them free.”
— Alan Keyes (1950) Political Activists, Author, and Presidential Candidate
“Education can’t make us all leaders, but it ca teach us which leaders to follow.”
— Unknown
“To the Truth through Faith and Reason”
–
“Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.”
— Plato (427BC-
“It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
— Aristotle (384 BC –
“Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehoods school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.”
— Plato (427BC-
“I am quite aware that the profession is now one for spineless automatons! I do not suggest to ANY of my high school students that they major in Education in college! Middle schools are nothing more than holding pens to keep the kids busy and out of trouble during the day. The curriculum is being dumbed down to make the schools look better on paper and to make the next generation easier to control and manipulate.”
— Anonymous (2014) – A teacher commenting on the effects of schools in following Common Core and nationalization of education.
“As long as there are tests there will be prayer in school.”
— Unknown
“The great object was to get rid of Christianity, and to convert our churches into halls of science. The plan was not to make open attacks on religion, although we might belabor the clergy and bring them into contempt where we could; but to establish a system of state,—we said national—schools, from which all religion was to be excluded, in which nothing was to be taught but such knowledge as is verifiable by the senses, and to which all parents were to be compelled by law to send their children. Our complete plan was to take the children from their parents at the age of twelve or eighteen months, and to have them nursed, fed, clothed, and trained in these schools at the public expense; but at any rate, we were to have godless schools for all the children of the country, to which the parents would be compelled by law to send them. The first thing to be done was to get this system of schools established. For this purpose, a secret society was formed, a secret society was formed, and the whole country was to be organized somewhat on the plan of the carbonari of Italy, or as were the revolutionists throughout Europe by Bazard preparatory to the revolutions of 1820 and 1830. This organization was commenced in 1829, in the city of New York, and to my own knowledge was effected throughout a considerable part of New York State. How far it was extended in other states … this secret infidel society, with its members all through the country unsuspected by the public, and unknown to each other, yet all nown to a central committee, and moved by it, have had in giving the extraordinary impulse to godless education which all must have remarked since 1830, an impulse which seems too strong for any human power now to resist.”
— Robert Dale Owen (1801–1877) American Socialist in the Democratic Party from Indiana formed the Working-
“Education that omits God is the incubator for lying, cheating, stealing, and greed.”
— Brad Bright – Author and Public Speaker on God and the Bible
“When the average parent in America comes to sincerely believe that the safety of his or her own children are at serious risk if God is not a part of education, then the opposition will be hard put to exclude ‘God’ from the schools.”
— Brad Bright – Author and Public Speaker on God and the Bible (book God is the Issue, pg 116
“’History, when rightly written, is but a record of providence; and he who would read history rightly, must read it with his eyes constantly fixed on the hand of God.’ This statement of a nineteenth-
Such a task must start from a Biblical viewpoint. The French Protestant preacher Massillion wrote, ‘God, who hides himself in other events reported in our own histories, appears as revealed in [the Bible]; and it is in this Book alone that we must learn to read the histories which men have left us.’ The Bible is the only reliable and trustworthy record for interpreting the events of history. It is God’s record, revealing the purpose, character, and actions of God in history. Scripture is the touchstone by which we should analyze and interpret historical data and events. ‘Scripture never offers an interpretation of facts apart from faith.’
From the Scriptures we find basic truths that may serve as the foundation of our teaching of history. The first basic truth is that God is in control of history. … God’s control may take the form of caring, governing, protecting, sustaining, and preserving. He exercises His will through divine superintendence or by divine intervention …
Another foundational truth is that God has a plan for history. History is providential, not accidental. …”
— David A. Fisher, Ph.D – Professor at Bob Jones University, Author
“I have come to see the real clash of the ages, involve wars and various historical circumstances, as being a clash of satan’ s versus God’s plan for man to learn and experience true liberty, by first receiving forgiveness of sins through the work of Christ on the cross, and then walking in the ‘newness of life.
Life really is that simple. Satan tries to corrupt and destroy the joy God desires for His children. Satan has used ignorance to keep people from experiencing God’s love and plan of salvation. People have groped in the darkness, being led to forfeit their God-
Our Founding Fathers deliberately used the Bible as their guide. They tried to ensure that schools, likewise, use the Bible to teach Christian self-
— Richard “Little Bear” Wheeler – Author, Public Speaker and Storyteller, and Pastor (book God’s Mighty Hand, pg. 128, 129)
“It’s not really about teaching academic content. It’s about achieving the correct behaviors and mindsets in children.” (On personal data gathered on students)
— Jane Robbins – Attorney and a Senior Fellow with the American Principles Project
(Educators are committing an “act of war” against America’s school children and intentionally dumbing down the nation) “We argue that we should view it as an act of war. Just because it wasn’t imposed by foreigners doesn’t make it any less serious. Dewey and his cohorts were trying to overthrow our system of government, our Constitution, our liberties, our God-
— Alex Newman –
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.”
— Karl Marx (1652–1725) Father of Communism, Atheist, Humanist, Political Economist & Sociologist
“If our generation happens to be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe, it will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word ‘Socialism’ is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life – forward! Neither threats nor persecutions nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones the future will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy as in the best days of my youth; because, my friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future.”
— Leon Trotsky [Lev Davidovich Bronshtein] (1879-1940) Marxist who founded the Red Army in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Soviet Politician
Parents are paying tens of thousands of dollars to send their children to glorified propaganda mills, where students (to borrow my friend Greg Lukianoff’s excellent phrase) “unlearn liberty.” You can call this “college,” but don’t dare call it an “education.”
— David French – Attorney and Staff Writer at National Review
“No Nation can long survive if it teaches its children to hate their ancesters and be ashamed of their heritage and that is exactly what we are doing in America today.”
— John Eidsmoe, Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, Constitutional Attorney & Author