I doubt if anything learnt at school is of more value than great literature learnt by heart.

There are few greater treasures to be acquired in youth than great poetry-and prose-stored in the memory. At the time one may resent the labor of storing. But they sleep in the memory and awake in later years, illuminated by life and illuminating it.

Theories are more common than achievements in the history of education.

There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than of critics.

If the school sends out children with a desire for knowledge and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done its work.