The elementary school must assume as its sublime and most solemn responsibility the task of teaching every child in it to read. Any school that does not accomplish this has failed.

I do not suggest that you should not have an open mind ... but don't keep your mind so open that your brains fall out.

Have we come to the point where it is now considered a secular blasphemy to acknowledge the name of God at all?

The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from, and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult, ethical controversies of the day. First things first. And planting the ideas of virtue, of good traits in the young, comes first. In the moral life, as in life itself, we take one step at a time. Every field has its complexities and controversies. And so does ethics. And every field has its basics. So too with values.

America's only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry against religious people. And the only reason for hatred of religion is that it forces us to confront matters many would prefer to ignore.

Our schools should get five years to get back to where they were in 1963. If they're still bad maybe we should declare educational bankruptcy, give the people their money and let them educate themselves and start their own schools

Nothing in recent years, on television or anywhere else, has improved on a good story that begins "Once upon a time..."