Ignorance has been well represented under the similitude of a dungeon, where, though it is full of life, yet darkness and silence reign. But in society the bars and locks have been broken; the dungeon itself is demolished; the prisoners are out; they are in the midst of us. We have no security but to teach and renovate them.
Horace MannAfter a child has arrived at the legal age for attending school,-whether he be the child of noble or of peasant,-the only two absolute grounds of exemption from attendance are sickness and death.
Horace MannWe who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.
Horace MannIn trying to teach children a great deal in a short time, they are treated not as though the race they were to run was for life, but simply a three-mile heat.
Horace MannHe who cannot resist temptation is not a man. Whoever yields to temptation debases himself with a debasement from which he can never arise.
Horace MannUnder 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.
Horace Mann