It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they

The words “It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber” by Robert Fulghum carry a power both gentle and revolutionary — a call from the heart to reorder our world’s priorities. In this simple yet piercing statement, Fulghum exposes the imbalance of human values: that we have long poured rivers of gold into the engines of destruction while letting the wells of learning run dry. His quote is a vision — a dream of a civilization enlightened enough to prize education over war, knowledge over violence, and the nurturing of minds over the building of bombs.

In the ancient way of wisdom, such words would have been spoken by a philosopher standing in the city square, calling his people back to reason. For no civilization can endure when it invests more in the art of killing than in the art of thinking. Fulghum, a teacher and philosopher himself, distilled this truth into a single image — a bake sale — a symbol of innocence and community, where mothers, fathers, and children raise coins for something wholesome. To imagine the air force needing such an act to fund its weapons is both humorous and tragic, a mirror showing us how absurd our world has become. The irony burns, for what is meant to protect us has consumed the very resources that could have enlightened us.

Throughout history, there have been those who understood this balance — and those who ignored it at great cost. Ancient Athens flourished not because of her warriors alone, but because of her teachers, poets, and philosophers. The mind of Socrates was as vital to Greece’s defense as the sword of any general, for wisdom guards a nation from the wars of folly. Contrast this with the fall of Rome, where endless military campaigns drained the treasury, and the schools of learning fell silent. Thus Fulghum’s words echo across time: when we neglect the education of our children, we prepare the ruin of our own house.

There is also a modern parable in his words — that of a teacher in a poor district who buys chalk and books from her own meager salary, while the government spends millions on weapons that may never be used. Her classroom roof leaks when it rains, yet her heart burns brighter than any missile, for she builds something that will last longer than empires: the future. This woman is the unspoken soldier of peace, fighting ignorance with patience instead of bullets. She stands as living proof that Fulghum’s dream is not naive — it is necessary.

The quote also reminds us of the moral inversion that plagues modern societies. When the sword is richer than the scholar, when invention serves death before life, the soul of the nation decays. The ancients believed that the true strength of a civilization was not in its fortresses but in its wisdom — its philosophers, scientists, and artists. For it is these who teach men how to live; the warrior only teaches them how to die. To restore this balance is to reclaim our humanity.

Let us then draw the lesson deeply: education is the seed of peace, and ignorance is the seed of war. A society that starves its schools and feeds its armies builds its own destruction. The path Fulghum points toward is not one of weakness but of enlightened strength — a world where the mind is the mightiest weapon, and the classroom the truest fortress. To walk this path, we must each become guardians of learning: by supporting teachers, funding schools, and honoring knowledge as the highest defense of freedom.

So, remember this vision, and speak it as the sages once spoke of virtue: The greatest day for humankind will not be marked by the silence of cannons, but by the song of classrooms alive with thought. When that day comes — when the bake sale is for a bomber, and the child’s education is fully funded — then truly, as Fulghum foretold, it will be a great day indeed, for it will be the day when wisdom has finally triumphed over war.