Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.

Hear the words of Lyndon B. Johnson, president of the United States and son of the Texas hills, who rose from poverty to the highest office in the land. He declared: “Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.” These words are both a revelation and a command, for they teach us that learning is not a burden to be endured, nor a difficulty to be solved, but a golden gate through which every man, woman, and child may pass into a brighter future. Johnson, who himself had known hardship and taught in poor schools before entering politics, understood that education was the ladder that could lift the lowliest into dignity.

For too long in history, nations have treated education as a burden: a matter of costs, of buildings, of teachers’ salaries, of endless debates over methods. But Johnson, in his vision, turned the question upon its head. He saw that these were not expenses, but investments; not weights, but wings. To him, education was the wellspring from which flowed prosperity, justice, and equality. It was not a problem to be endured, but an opportunity to be embraced with joy and determination.

Johnson’s conviction was shaped by his life. As a young man, he taught Mexican-American children in a small school in Cotulla, Texas. There, he saw with his own eyes the power of learning and the cruelty of ignorance. These children, hungry and poor, came to him not with advantages but with longing. And when he taught them, when he gave them words and numbers, he gave them dignity. From that experience, he carried into the presidency a burning faith: that through education, the barriers of race and poverty could be broken.

Thus, as president, Johnson launched the Great Society and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, channeling funds to schools that served the poor. He knew that the fate of the nation lay not in wealth hoarded by the few, but in knowledge shared by the many. He saw education as the instrument by which America could keep its promise of equality, lifting the children of sharecroppers, immigrants, and workers into the same light of opportunity. His declaration was not theoretical; it was the guiding principle of his leadership.

History provides other examples of this truth. Consider the G.I. Bill after World War II, which offered millions of returning soldiers the chance to attend college. At first, some thought it would be a burden to the treasury. Yet in time, it produced one of the greatest expansions of the middle class in history. Veterans became doctors, engineers, teachers, and entrepreneurs, fueling decades of growth. What some feared as a problem became the greatest opportunity for national renewal.

The meaning of Johnson’s words is also personal. Each of us may view education as toil, as homework, as a challenge to endure. But the wise know that every book opened is a door unlocked, every lesson learned a step forward, every struggle with knowledge a preparation for freedom. To complain of education as a problem is to miss its gift. To embrace it as an opportunity is to seize the power to change one’s own destiny.

Therefore, O listener, let this teaching guide you: do not despise the labor of learning. Whether you are a child at your desk, a worker seeking new skills, or a parent teaching your family, see in education the chance to rise. Invest in it, fight for it, and cherish it. If you are a leader, strengthen schools. If you are a teacher, remember the sacredness of your task. If you are a student, rejoice in the gift that others before you were denied.

For as Lyndon B. Johnson declared, education is not a problem but an opportunity. It is the road from poverty to prosperity, from ignorance to wisdom, from bondage to freedom. To walk upon that road is to honor the generations who dreamed of it, and to prepare a brighter path for those yet to come.