As each generation comes into the world devoid of knowledge, its first duty is to obtain possession of the stores already amassed. It must overtake its predecessors before it can pass by them.

Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.

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.

Time is a seedfield; in youth we sow it with causes; in after life we reap the harvest of effects.

In what pagan nation was Moloch ever propitiated by such an unbroken and swift-moving procession of victims as are offered to this Moloch of Christendom, intemperance.

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.

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?