I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

Sagan contrasts children’s natural curiosity with the comparative disengagement he often observed in older students. The remark implies that enthusiasm for science is not primarily a matter of innate ability but of cultivation: early learners tend to approach the world with wonder, while later schooling and social pressures can reward rote performance, conformity, or fear of being wrong. In Sagan’s broader outlook, this is a warning about how educational systems can inadvertently extinguish the very questioning spirit science depends on. The quote also functions as a call to protect and extend childhood curiosity into adolescence and adulthood through better teaching, encouragement of skepticism, and hands-on discovery.