Horace Mann Quotes

It is obvious to any observer that in every western country the increase of importance of public schools has been at least coincident with the relaxation of older family ties.

Of all our institutions public education is the most important. Everything depends on it, the present and the future.

Public schools have become the established church of secular society

The public schools have indeed been the most powerful single engine of subversion that our enemies have used upon us.

The only way to beat poverty in America is to completely transform American public education

To me, education is not a commodity. It is a public good, essential to any society with a claim to being civilised.

Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

We used to have superb public schools. I guess we don't anymore, but, boy, the public schools were really something and I am a product of those in Indianapolis.

It sometimes seems as though we were trying to combine the ideal of no schools at all with the democratic ideal of schools for everybody by having schools without education.

Education is the great American adventure, the world's most colossal democratic experiment.

[Betsy DeVos] is quite a smart person, capable, pretty sophisticated in subtle thought. And so to me, that puts her in the realm of policy. But we're in a climate where, as today, she tries to visit a school, and she can't even do that because protesters are blocking that.

Betsy DeVos is not the most informed person on education policy, but I have seen her present a few times, and she presents as a pretty respectable, intelligent person who has cared passionately about education and cares about charter schools.

I believe the public schools are the greatest cultural influence in this country.

Out of the public schools comes the greatness of the nation.

Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defence, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach.

Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it.

Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain.

Public school teachers are the new priesthood while traditional religion is ridiculed and maligned.

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.

The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.

There is an old saying that the course of civilization is a race between catastrophe and education. In a democracy such as ours, we must make sure that education wins the race.

I'm not sure Betsy DeVos has ever spent a day in a public school. And I don't - I'm pretty sure Donald Trump hasn't.

The problem with education is school.

Education has been a really big part of my life. I went to an all-girls school for most of my life, and the curriculum was definitely at the top of your list.

I see bright kids trapped in public schools that are just warehousing them. As an educator this makes me scared. As Secretary of State, this makes me terrified.