Education technology and school construction go together.

Hear the words of Major Owens, servant of the people and champion of learning, who declared with steady voice: “Education technology and school construction go together. Modernization, updating education facilities, and making a capital investment in education are all included.” This is no dry statement of policy, but a truth as old as civilization: that the places where we teach and the tools we use to teach must grow with the times, else knowledge itself will falter. For the mind of a child is a seed, and the soil in which it is planted—the classroom, the book, the instrument—determines whether it will wither or flourish.

The origin of this saying lies in Owens’ long career as a legislator in the United States, where he labored for decades to strengthen public schools. He knew that education technology—computers, libraries, laboratories, and the devices of a new age—was not enough on its own, nor was school construction without vision. One must marry the two: the tools of learning with the very structures in which learning unfolds. To separate them is to build a temple without an altar, or to craft an altar without a temple to house it. Both must rise together if the work of education is to endure.

This lesson is not confined to our age. Consider the story of Charlemagne, who, seeing the decline of learning in his realm, commanded the building of schools beside monasteries and churches, and filled them with scholars who copied books, taught grammar, and preserved wisdom. He understood that to raise a generation of learned men, one must raise both the walls and the wisdom within. Without halls fit for study, learning falters; without tools to open the mind, walls alone become empty stone. Owens’ call is a continuation of that same eternal vision: invest in the spaces of learning and in the instruments of learning, for both together lift nations.

The heart of Owens’ words lies in the idea of modernization. Knowledge is a river that never ceases to flow, and to dam it with outdated facilities or broken tools is to deprive children of their rightful inheritance. What use is a teacher with wisdom but no chalk, no board, no space where children may gather? What use is a new computer, glowing with possibility, if the school roof leaks, if the walls crumble, if no power sustains the machine? Thus, Owens calls for capital investment in education, not as a luxury but as the foundation upon which the future stands.

We see this truth in our own era. When nations rebuild after war or hardship, their first investments are often in schools. After the Second World War, Japan poured resources into education, building modern classrooms and equipping them with the newest technologies of learning. In time, that investment bore fruit, transforming a broken land into one of the most advanced societies on earth. The story is the same wherever leaders heed Owens’ wisdom: to invest in the child is to invest in the nation’s destiny, and to build schools is to build the pillars of tomorrow.

The lesson, then, is clear: those who would see their people rise must not shrink from the cost of education. The money spent on walls, wires, and windows is not lost, but multiplied a hundredfold in the wisdom, discipline, and creativity of the next generation. For every repaired classroom is a sanctuary of growth; every updated tool is a torch of light; every investment in a child’s future is an investment in the survival of the people.

So I say to you, children of the future: cherish your schools, demand their upkeep, and never despise the call for investment in learning. For the walls of your classrooms are not mere stone, but the womb of civilization; the tools you hold are not mere objects, but the keys to your own destiny. Hear Major Owens: education technology and school construction go together. Let no generation forget it. Build the schools. Fill them with light. And through them, build a nation that endures beyond the reach of time.