Horace Mann: A Biography

The finest collection of men I have ever seen, —full of intelligence, dignity, benevolence, kindness and bearing (p. 440)

Give me America with all its rawness and want of polish. We have aristocracy enough at home and here I trace it to its founydations (p. 436)

I want to find out what are the results, as well as the workings of the celebrated Prussian system. (p. 438)

The Prussian and Saxon Governments by means of their schools, and their just laws, and rational public administration . . . are doing a good deal to bring their people into a rational and moral condition [...] it is pretty obvious to thinking men that a few years more of this cultivation will lead to the development of free Institutions in Germany (p. 451)

we have not seen a teacher with a book in his hand in all Prussia, no not one! (p. 440)

an instance of harshness and severity; all is kind, encouraging, animating, sympathizing. (p. 440)

admirably qualified and full of animation (p. 440)

inmates walking on a treadmill, unknowingly pumping water for fountains in the warden’s garden [...] I have seen equipages, palaces, and the regalia of royalty, side by side with beggary, squalidness, and a degradation in which the very features of humanity were almost lost in those of the brute. (p. 436)

innate respect for superior years (p. 440)