We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions as to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex.
Interpretation
Education should be inclusive and based solely on merit and purpose, irrespective of race, creed, or sex.
Abraham Flexner emphasizes that the essence of America's noblest spirit lies in its commitment to higher learning, which should be free from discrimination based on race, creed, or sex. He advocates for an educational environment that prioritizes the goals of knowledge and personal development over arbitrary social distinctions.
In practice
In a graduation speech to promote inclusivity in education.
At no period of [Michael Faraday's] unmatched career was he interested in utility. He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles. As far as he cared, the question of utility was never raised. Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.
The dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg. What it doesn't count are all the kids who are in school but being disengaged from it, who don't enjoy it, who don't get any real benefit from it.
I view it as one of the greatest crimes to shadow the minds of the young with these gloomy superstitions, and with fears of the unknown and the unknowable to poison all their joy in life.
Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.
You can have knowledge, and you can be meticulous in your preparation; but without the unction of the Holy Spirit you will have no power, and your preaching will not be effective.
I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them.
By fully committing to our public education system and engaging holistically from cradle to career, we can guarantee that all of our children in Georgia, no matter their needs, have the kinds of teachers and neighbors in their lives that my mother had.
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