Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

Garfield ranks mass schooling as the essential civic support for a free republic: liberty and fair laws may be proclaimed, but they cannot endure if citizens lack the knowledge and habits needed to understand rights, evaluate leaders, and participate responsibly in public life. The phrasing “popular education” points to broad, accessible education rather than elite instruction, implying that democratic stability depends on an informed electorate. The quote also reflects a common post–Civil War American argument that public education underwrites social cohesion and constitutional government by cultivating civic virtue and resistance to demagoguery and corruption.