“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”Victor Hugo · Mizerabilii · 1862 · Partea a doua, cartea a cincea, capitolul despre mănăstirea Petit-Picpus
Every child educated today is an adult society won't have to punish tomorrow.
Hugo voices a nineteenth-century faith in the power of schooling: ignorance feeds crime and misery, and the school cuts them at the root. The mechanism is preventive, not punitive: every educated child is a future adult with legitimate means to live and a mind able to tell justice from force. A poor kid who learns a trade never stands before a judge later, and society saves two buildings.
Why it matters It matters today in debates about funding education: every unit invested in schools is a unit not spent on policing and punishment.