For what greater or better service can we render to our country, than by thus educating and instructing the rising generation, especially in times like these, and in the present state of morality, when society has fallen into such disorders as to require everyone to use his best exertions to check and restrain it?

[Quod enim munus rei publicae afferre maius meliusve possumus, quam si docemus atque erudimus iuventutem, his praesertim moribus atque temporibus, quibus ita prolapsa est, ut omnium opibus refrenanda atque coercenda sit?]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher

De Divinatione [On Divination], Book 2, ch. 2 (2.2) / sec. 4 (44 BC) [tr. Yonge (1853)]
    (Source)

(Source (Latin)). Alternate translation:

For what greater or better service can I render to the common wealth than to instruct and train the youth -- especially in view of the fact that our young men have gone so far astray because of the present moral laxity that the utmost effort will be needed to hold them in check and direct them in the right way?
[tr. Falconer (1923)]

What nobler employment, or what more advantageous to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation!
[Source (<1864)]