Men are uplifted by education much more surely than they are by any tinkering with laws and institutions, because the work of education leavens the actual social substance.

It helps to give the individual himself those qualities without which no institutions, however excellent, are of any use, and with which even bad institutions and laws can be made vehicles of grace.
The American faith in education has been characterized as a superstition; and superstitious in some respects it unquestionably is.
But its superstitious tendency is not exhibited so much in respect to the ordinary process of primary, secondary, and higher education.

Not even an American can over-emphasize the importance of proper teaching during youth; and the only wonder is that the money so freely lavished on it does not produce better results.

Americans are superstitious in respect to education, rather because of the social "uplift" which they expect to achieve by so-called educational means.

The credulity of the socialist in expecting to alter human nature by merely institutional and legal changes is at least equaled by the credulity of the good American in proposing to evangelize the individual by the reading of books and by the expenditure of money and words.