Horace Mann Quotes about Education

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.

Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.

A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.

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.

Education is a capital to the poor man, and an interest to the rich man.

When will society, like a mother, take care of all her children?

As an apple is not in any proper sense an apple until it is ripe, so a human being is not in any proper sense a human being until he is educated.

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

Republics, one after another . . . have perished from a want of intelligence and virtue in the masses of the people. . . .

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.

Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.

Schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications.

The education already given to the people creates the necessity of giving them more.

Education must bring the practice as nearly as possible to the theory. As the children now are, so will the sovereigns soon be.

When you introduce into our schools a spirit of emulation, you have present the keenest spur admissible to the youthful intellect.

Education is an organic necessity of a human being.

Finally, in regard to those who possess the largest shares in the stock of worldly goods, could there, in your opinion, be any police so vigilant and effetive, for the protections of all the rights of person, property and character, as such a sound and comprehensive education and training, as our system of Common Schools could be made to impart; and would not the payment of a sufficient tax to make such education and training universal, be the cheapest means of self-protection and insurance?

The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us;– they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as means to be converted by the refining alchemy of education into mental and spiritual treasures; ...and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power.

If ever there was a cause, if ever there can be a cause, worthy to be upheld by all of toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of Education. It has intrinsic and indestructible merits. It holds the welfare of mankind in its embrace, as the protecting arms of a mother hold her infant to her bosom. The very ignorance and selfishness which obstructs its path are the strongest arguments for its promotion, for it furnishes the only adequate means for their removal.