The best students come from homes where education is revered:

Leo Buscaglia, the teacher of love and life, once spoke these words: “The best students come from homes where education is revered: where there are books, and children see their parents reading them.” This is not merely a reflection on schooling, but a revelation about the soil from which wisdom springs. For the child is like a tender sapling, and the home is the earth that feeds its roots. If the soil is rich with reverence for knowledge, if it is watered with the sight of books and the living example of learning, then the tree grows tall, straight, and fruitful. But if the soil is barren of curiosity, if the air is dry with indifference, the sapling withers before it reaches the sun.

From the ancient times, sages have known this truth. In Greece, the youth of Athens did not become philosophers by accident; they saw their fathers in dialogue, their mothers reciting poetry, their elders honoring the scrolls of wisdom. In the lands of the East, the Confucian scholars carried the memory of fathers who bent late over texts by candlelight, and of mothers who valued the stroke of a brush more than the sparkle of gold. Education was not a task, but a sacred flame, passed from one generation to the next.

Consider the story of Abraham Lincoln, born in poverty in a rough log cabin, where luxuries were scarce but books were treasured like jewels. His stepmother encouraged him, and young Lincoln would walk miles to borrow a single volume, reading by the dim firelight late into the night. The reverence for learning in that humble home, the sight of adults respecting the written word, became the foundation upon which he built his towering intellect and his enduring wisdom. Without such reverence, perhaps the course of a nation might have been different.

Buscaglia’s words remind us that children are not shaped only by schools or teachers but by what they witness daily in the sanctuaries of their homes. When a child sees a parent immersed in a book, they learn not only letters and stories but the value of devotion to knowledge. The parent need not lecture, for the silent act of reading preaches more powerfully than words. To see wisdom loved is to learn that wisdom is worthy of love.

Yet, too often in our age, the flame of education flickers in households distracted by noise, fleeting amusements, and the glow of screens. The child who sees no reverence for books may grow up thinking knowledge is a burden, rather than a treasure. This is not the fault of the child, but of the environment. Just as a seed cannot flourish in shadow, so too does a young mind fail to blossom where there is no sunlight of example.

The lesson here is both clear and urgent: parents and elders must live as they would have their children become. If they desire wise and noble offspring, they must themselves revere wisdom and nobility. A library in the home, no matter how small, is more powerful than ornaments of wealth. A parent reading each evening is a greater gift than toys or trinkets. What the eyes of a child behold, the heart of a child embraces.

Therefore, O listener, cultivate a dwelling where books are not ornaments but companions. Let your children see you turn the page with patience, linger over words with awe, and delight in the discovery of new ideas. Read together, speak of what you have learned, and weave a family culture where education is the highest inheritance. This way, you build not only students for schools but citizens for the world, thinkers for the future, and souls awakened to the eternal pursuit of truth.

Let this be the charge: place education at the center of your home, let books be the sacred stones upon which you build your household, and let the young see in you what you desire to see in them. Thus, you will not only raise the best students but also the best human beings, whose wisdom and character will outlive even the walls of the house that sheltered them.