What I saw when I went to France was that really good quality

Hear, O seeker of wisdom and justice, the words of Liz Truss, spoken not in boast but in revelation: “What I saw when I went to France was that really good quality education and childcare is seen there as a completely normal part of everyday life.” In this simple reflection lies a profound lesson — that the health of a nation is not measured by its wealth or its monuments, but by the way it tends to its children and uplifts its people through learning. For in societies where education and care are woven into the fabric of daily life, dignity and progress grow naturally, as flowers flourish in the sun.

The meaning of this quote is both practical and philosophical. Truss, observing another land, speaks to a truth that transcends borders: that when education and childcare are treated as essentials — not privileges — the soul of a nation rises. In France, she saw what many societies have forgotten — that to nurture the mind and protect the young is not a luxury of the rich, but a responsibility of the civilized. When schooling and care are not treated as burdens or political favors, but as common goods — “a completely normal part of everyday life” — equality ceases to be a dream and becomes a living practice.

The origin of this insight lies in Truss’s experience as a British minister studying social systems abroad. As the United Kingdom debated reforms to education and childcare, she looked to France, where the crèches and écoles maternelles stood as models of balance between public duty and private life. There, she saw teachers and caregivers not as servants of policy, but as guardians of the nation’s future. Her words, though drawn from observation, echo an older truth — that civilization itself is built upon how a people raises its children and prepares its youth for wisdom.

History too bears witness to this eternal pattern. In ancient Athens, education was not reserved for the elite; it was the breath of the polis itself. Boys were taught rhetoric, philosophy, and athletics — not merely to earn a living, but to become citizens. The mothers of Sparta, though famed for their sternness, knew that their children’s training was the foundation of their city’s strength. And in Confucian China, it was written that the stability of the empire began in the proper education of the young. Every great civilization that endured understood that the care of children and the cultivation of minds were not special policies — they were sacred duties.

In contrast, societies that neglect these foundations decay. When education becomes a privilege, ignorance grows like shadow; when childcare becomes unaffordable, the burdens of life crush the spirit of families. Truss’s observation thus becomes a quiet warning: that if care and learning are not normalized, they will become distant luxuries, accessible only to the few. The ancients would have said: “When the young are neglected, the old will live in fear.” For a nation that forgets to teach and to nurture builds not a future, but a ruin.

But the spirit of her words is not despairing — it is aspirational. It calls us to envision a world where every child is welcomed into learning as naturally as they are welcomed into light. Where teachers are honored as builders of destiny, and caregivers as protectors of the human soul. Where governments understand that investment in children is not an expense, but the seed of eternity. To make education and childcare “completely normal” is to make compassion a habit, and equality a culture — not through decree, but through collective will.

So, what lesson must we take from this, O listener of the ages? It is this: what is normal reflects what we value. If we would live in a wise and just world, we must make care and knowledge the foundation of our daily lives. Support the schools. Honor the teachers. Strengthen the families who bear the nation’s weight. Let no child grow up unseen, and no parent struggle alone. For when the raising of children and the cultivation of minds become as ordinary as the rising of the sun, then — and only then — shall humanity live in the full light of its own potential.

Thus remember the quiet wisdom of Liz Truss’s words: that in a truly enlightened society, education and childcare are not privileges to be fought for, but the natural rhythm of a just life. When every heart, home, and hand participates in that rhythm, the whole world becomes a classroom of virtue, and every generation inherits a better dawn than the one before.