On public education

"To afford all members of the human race the means of providing for their needs; of securing their welfare, of recognizing and fulfilling their duties; to assure for everyone opportunities of perfecting their skill and rendering themselves capable of the social duties to which they have a right to be called; to develop to the utmost the talents with which nature has endowed them and, in so doing, to establish among all citizens a true equality and thus make real the political equality realised by law - this should be the primary aim of a national system of education, and from this point of view its establishment is for the public authority an obligation of justice." - Marquis de Condorcet, report to French Legislative Assembly (1791)