I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Besant’s remark turns the familiar maxim “honesty is the best policy” into a moral indictment of society. If public life rewards deceit, exploitation, or sharp practice, then telling children that honesty “pays” becomes a kind of bad faith: it treats virtue as a strategy rather than a principle, and it ignores the real incentives children will observe. The quote therefore argues that ethical education cannot be separated from social conditions. It calls for reform—making institutions and everyday dealings more truthful and fair—so that moral instruction is not contradicted by lived experience.