The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
Noah WebsterRead
To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.
Interpretation
Eliminating societal vices is more crucial for the well-being of citizens than improving education alone.
Noah Webster emphasizes that addressing and eliminating popular vices within society is paramount for enhancing the character and happiness of individuals, suggesting that education improvements, while important, are secondary to the moral and ethical development that comes from correcting societal flaws.
In practice
In a speech on community improvement, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of moral responsibility.
The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character.
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground
Nothing has a greater tendency to lessen the reverence which mankind ought to have for the Supreme Being, than a careless repetition of his name upon every trifling occasion . . . . To prevent this profanation, such passages are selected from scripture, as contain some important precepts of morality and religion, in which that sacred name is seldom mentioned. Let sacred things be appropriated to sacred purposes.
Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.
To achieve our goals of educating bold and ambitious children, we must invest in enriching, quality early child care and learning.
You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time.
We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
Read. It makes you more intelligent. Itβs that simple. We all see the universe through the tiny keyhole of our own eyes, and every book is another keyhole from which you can gaze.
No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally β and often far more β worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
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