Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.

The remark frames education less as the accumulation of knowledge than as the cultivation of self-command. Its emphasis is on disciplined agency: being able to compel oneself to act at the right time, independent of mood or preference. In that sense, it treats willpower, habit, and a sense of duty as education’s “most valuable result,” because these qualities translate learning into reliable conduct. The line also implies a moral dimension—doing what one “has to do” when it “ought” to be done—suggesting that education should form character and practical responsibility, not merely refine intellect or taste.