Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 by Christopher Columbus Andrews

The duty of bringing up the young in the way of usefulness has ever been acknowledged as of utmost importance to the well-being and safety of a State. So imperative was this obligation considered by Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, that he excused children from maintaining their parents, when old and feeble, if they had neglected to qualify them for some useful art or profession. Although this principle has universally prevailed in every civilized age, yet the success of its practical operation depends entirely upon what is understood by necessary knowledge and useful employment.

If, as among the Lacedemonians and many other nations of antiquity, a useful art consisted chiefly in the exploits of war, -- in being able to undergo privations and hardships, and in wielding successfully the heavy instruments of bloodshed, -- such an education as would conduce to the acquirement of that art must be estimated on different grounds from that system whose object is to develop the moral and intellectual faculties.