Of the three sorts of knowledge proper to a child, the knowledge of God, of man, and of the universe,--the knowledge of God ranks first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making.

Education is a matter of the spirit. No wiser word has been said on the subject, and yet we persist in applying education from without. No one knoweth the things of the man except the spirit of man which is in him; therefore, there is no education but self-education, and as soon as a young child begins his education, he does so as a student. Our business is to give him mind stuff. Both quantity and quality are essential.

Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much diluted stuff that is too often put into children’s hands.

The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.

The peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas and furnish the imagination with pictures.

We attempt to define a person, the most commonplace person we know, but he will not submit to bounds; some unexpected beauty of nature breaks out; we find he is not what we thought, and begin to suspect that every person exceeds our power of measurement.

We talk of lost ideals, but perhaps they are not lost, only changed; when our ideal for ourselves and for our children becomes limited to prosperity and comfort, we get these, very likely, for ourselves and for them, but we get no more.