Nothing will have more impact on the future of the world than for each of us to find out why we were born and to do it. Human beings tend to do this when parents, teachers and other mentors invite us to it.

When we let our freedoms slip away without a fight or even without concern, we take freedom, prosperity and happiness away from our posterity. What kind of people do that? Are we such people? These are questions each of us must face.

There are really only two ways to teach. You can inspire the student to voluntarily and enthusiastically choose to do the hard work necessary to get a great education, or you can attempt to require it of him.

What the great mentor is always looking for is a person who is willing to tap his genius, to put it through the refiner's fire, to do the hard work to develop it. Indeed, mentoring is the medieval art of alchemy-turning plain old human steel into hearts and minds of gold.

In our day, a vast majority of people is dependent either on an employer or the government-or both. One way to rate your level of independence might be to measure how long you can survive, feed your family and live in your home after your employer stops paying you anything.

Teachers teach and students educate. Students are the only true educators. Historically, every other method of education has failed. Education occurs when students get excited about learning and apply themselves; students do this when they experience great teachers.

The war is for the family. The battle for their children's education and their grandchildren's freedom is as real to them as if they could witness the clangs of bayonets on the field or hear the blasts of mortars in the harbor.