A Debt Against the Living
"The improvements made by the dead form a debt against the living."
Found in the book A Debt Against the Living, by Ilan Wurman, which I highly recommend if you're interested in more philosophical ideas surrounding the U.S. Constitution and the way it is interpreted by judges and law professors.
These quotes, authored by James Madison in response to Thomas Jefferson, eloquently capture the essence of what now seems dead and buried in modern education—a mature deference to ideas of the past.
If the earth be the gift of nature to the living, their title can extend to the earth in its natural state only. The improvements made by the dead form a debt against the living, who take the benefit of them. This debt cannot be otherwise discharged than by a proportionate obedience to the will of the Authors of the improvements.
Similarly foreign to modern educational thought is Madison's ability to entertain two seemingly opposing ideas at the same time:
Is it not the glory of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater in favor of private rights and public happiness.
