America's future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.
Interpretation
The future of America depends on what children learn at home and school, emphasizing the importance of education and role models.
This quote by Jane Addams highlights the critical influence of both the educational system and the home environment in shaping a child's future. It suggests that the values, knowledge, and behaviors imparted to children will largely define who they become as adults, therefore urging adults to be mindful of their teachings and lifestyles.
In practice
This quote is perfect for educators at a teacher training seminar.
I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not know what good music was; I might enjoy half an hour's practice a day if I were busy and happy the rest of the time. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed! I am simply smothered and sickened with advantages. It is like eating a sweet dessert the first thing in the morning.
Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.
I am not one of those who believe - broadly speaking - that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislatures, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.
Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.
National events determine our ideals, as much as our ideals determine national events.
If the meanest man in the republic is deprived of his rights,then every man in the republic is deprived of his rights.
A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.
The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. [I]t is much easier to introduce and establish an effectual system ... than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system. ... The education of youth ... lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success.
There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.
The teaching of one virtuous person can influence many; that which has been learned well by one generation can be passed on to a hundred.
My first reaction every time I delve into an episode of history that I don't know very much about is... my first reaction is anger that my teachers never taught me about it.
There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.
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