The facilities for advanced education must be evened out and multiplied. No one who can take advantage of a higher education should be denied this chance. You cannot conduct a modern community except with an adequate supply of persons upon whose education, whether humane, technical, or scientific, much time and money have been spent.

In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all. I scribbled all my opinions on the margins of the pages ... From Gibbon I went to Macauley. I had learnt The Lays of Ancient Rome by heart, and loved them; and of course I knew he had written a history; but I had never read a page of it ... I accepted all Macauley wrote as gospel, and I was grieved to read his harsh judgements upon the Great Duke of Marlborough.

It was at “Little Lodge” I was first menaced with Education. The approach of a sinister figure described as ‘the Governess’ was announced.

How I hated this school, and what a life of anxiety I lived there for more than two years.

I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence – which is a noble thing ... I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English.

Unteachable from infancy to tomb — There is the first and main characteristic of mankind.

Here are pages from Churchill’s speech at the tree planting ceremony where he talks about the importance of scientific training to maintain Britain’s position in the world...