"If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals"
About this Quote
Susan B. Anthony links the quality of public education to who has a personal stake in it. When wealthy families and influential church members opt out for private or parochial schools, they remove not only tuition dollars but also political pressure, attention, and urgency. If their own children sat in public classrooms every day, their money, influence, and advocacy would follow, and standards would rise toward what she calls the highest ideals. It is an argument about incentives: universal participation creates universal commitment.
The line reflects the 19th-century battles over the common school movement, sparked by Horace Mann and carried forward by reformers who saw public schools as the backbone of a democratic republic. Anthony, a Quaker-raised abolitionist and suffragist, distrusted both entrenched wealth and church authority when either insulated itself from the common good. Her mention of church people points to fierce debates over sectarian influence in schooling, from Bible reading to the rise of Catholic parochial schools. By urging the powerful to share the same classrooms as everyone else, she seeks to turn social divisions into shared investment.
Beneath the policy point lies a moral one. Public education falters when it is treated as a charity for other people’s children; it flourishes when it is a public good used by all. Anthony anticipates a pattern seen across public services: programs that include the affluent tend to be better funded, more accountable, and closer to their stated ideals. The phrase feel bound captures the mix of empathy and self-interest that would drive improvement when parents experience the consequences directly.
She frames schooling not as a private consumer choice but as a civic institution that should mirror and mold the nation’s aspirations. If the most privileged must rely on it, they will demand excellence. If they can exit, they will tolerate mediocrity for those left behind. The remedy is simple and radical: shared schools, shared stakes, shared standards.
The line reflects the 19th-century battles over the common school movement, sparked by Horace Mann and carried forward by reformers who saw public schools as the backbone of a democratic republic. Anthony, a Quaker-raised abolitionist and suffragist, distrusted both entrenched wealth and church authority when either insulated itself from the common good. Her mention of church people points to fierce debates over sectarian influence in schooling, from Bible reading to the rise of Catholic parochial schools. By urging the powerful to share the same classrooms as everyone else, she seeks to turn social divisions into shared investment.
Beneath the policy point lies a moral one. Public education falters when it is treated as a charity for other people’s children; it flourishes when it is a public good used by all. Anthony anticipates a pattern seen across public services: programs that include the affluent tend to be better funded, more accountable, and closer to their stated ideals. The phrase feel bound captures the mix of empathy and self-interest that would drive improvement when parents experience the consequences directly.
She frames schooling not as a private consumer choice but as a civic institution that should mirror and mold the nation’s aspirations. If the most privileged must rely on it, they will demand excellence. If they can exit, they will tolerate mediocrity for those left behind. The remedy is simple and radical: shared schools, shared stakes, shared standards.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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