Our Favorite Harry Truman Quotes on Education
Independence’s Harry S. Truman loved learning. Even before he started school, he knew how to read, and his love for history and biography served him well as President of the United States.
A near-self-professed teacher’s pet, Truman had only good things to say of his teachers.
“I do not remember a bad teacher in all my experiences,” he wrote in his memoirs. “They were all different, of course, but they were the salt of the earth. They gave us high ideals and they hardly ever received more than $40 a month for it.”
Even in 2021, 120 years after he graduated from Independence High School, Truman’s words for his teachers ring true.
As you might be able to guess, Truman gravitated toward the subjects of history and biology in school.
“Reading history, to me,” he said, “was far more than a romantic adventure. It was solid instruction and wise teaching which I somehow felt that I wanted and needed. I could see that history had some extremely valuable lessons to teach. I learned from it that a leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.”
Which of Truman’s teachers could have known that they were teaching a future president? And someone’s out there doing it today without a clue. Such is life.
Take a look at some of our favorite Truman quotes on education below, and, to all the teachers out there, thank you and good luck in 2021-22.
