If we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.

The line expresses a hierarchy of values in which religious faith is treated as more fundamental than formal schooling. Read in the context of Bryan’s broader public rhetoric, it reflects anxiety that “education” can become detached from moral or spiritual foundations and thus undermine character or social cohesion. The stark either/or framing is polemical: it is meant to shock, rally believers, and cast certain forms of modern instruction as a threat to religion rather than a complement to it. As a quotation, it is often cited to summarize Bryan’s anti-modernist posture, though without a verified occasion it should be used cautiously as evidence of his exact position.