Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States. He also founded the University of Virginia. Here, he explained why public education is essential to our survival as a nation:
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
“The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.”
“A sense of this necessity, and a submission to it, is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”
“The good sense of the people will always be found the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves.”
“The voluntary support of laws, formed by persons of their own choice, distinguishes peculiarly the minds capable of self-government. The contrary spirit is anarchy, which of necessity produces despotism.”