[Speech on National Aid to Education, February 6, 1872.]
We look sometimes with great admiration at a government like Germany, that can command the light of its education to shine everywhere, that can enforce its school laws everywhere throughout the Empire. Under our system we do not rejoice in that, but we rather rejoice that here two forces play with all their vast power upon our system of education. The first is that of the local municipal power under our State government. There is the centre of responsibility. There is the chief educational power....
But there is another force even greater than that of the State and the local governments. It is the force of private voluntary enterprise, that force which has built up the multitude of private schools, academies, and colleges throughout the United States, not always wisely, but always with enthusiasm and wonderful energy.
I am considering what is the best system of organizing the educational work of a nation, not from the political stand-point alone, but from the stand-point of the school-house itself. This work of public education partakes in a peculiar way of the spirit of the human mind in its efforts for culture. The mind must be as free from extraneous control as possible; must work under the inspiration of its own desires for knowledge; and while instructors and books are necessary helps, the fullest and highest success must spring from the power of self-help.
So the best system of education is that which draws its chief support from the voluntary effort of the community, from the individual effort of citizens, and from those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily impose upon themselves.... Government shall be only a help to them, rather than a commander, in the work of education.
I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.
Present evils always seem greater than those that never come.
Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving.
For the noblest man that lives there still remains a conflict.
No man can make a speech alone. It is the great human power that strikes up from a thousand minds that acts upon him and makes the speech.
After the battle of Arms comes the battle of History.
There is a fellowship among the Virtues by which one great, generous passion stimulates another.
Growth is better than Permanence, and permanent growth is better than all.
The principles of Ethics have not changed by the lapse of years.
The possession of great power no doubt carries with it a contempt for mere external show.