Emma Willard

“Reason and religion teach that we too are primary existences... the companions, not the satellites of men.”

“That nature has endowed our sex with minds equal to those of the other sex, and that they are capable of the same improvement, is a truth, which I hope, is not in this enlightened age, disputed.”

“It is the duty of a government to do all in its power to enlighten the understanding and improve the hearts of the people.”

“Education should seek to bring its subjects to the perfection of their moral, intellectual, and physical nature.”

“To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction, is to live twice.”

“My object is to reach the mothers and the teachers, and to show them how to make their children and their pupils love the study of history.”

“Who knows how many slaves to their passions and their fortune... might have been happy and useful citizens, if in their childhood they had been taught to think and to reflect.”

“The study of geography ought to begin with the details of the pupil's own country.”