With regard to the status of students and then the status of teachers; the students are the wealth of this nation; the destiny of our country in the future is in the hands of the students of today. In other words, in every field that they are in, in the field of law for example, and in the other fields of study in one way the destinies and the various affairs of the country lie in the hands of the students. They have to manage the future affairs of the country. In the same way the teachers are the ones who educate the individuals who are going to run the affairs of the country; in other words, the key to the prosperity of a country lies in the hands of the teacher and the student. Foremost, the teacher must educate the young and next the youth must run the country. Therefore, every country in the world, the existence of every country in the world is tied to the hands of the students and the teacher. The key to prosperity lies in the hands of the teacher; and to the same extent that the status of the teacher is great; so is his responsibility. To the same extent that the learned is great, so also is the responsibility of the learned big, and it makes no difference whether that learned person is of the modern universities or of the religious sciences.
From the universities and the schools … begin the prosperity of nations. It is the universities and the schools wherein lie all the destinies of a country. The prosperity of a nation lies in the hands of the learned of that nation. If the intellectuals of a nation be not deviant, have perseverance, and be on the right path, the nation too will be drawn on the path of righteousness, and the nation will also attain happiness. Whereas, if God forbid, there be deviations in the universities, in the colleges, in the traditional religious schools and in the modern institutions of learning, it is from there that the deviation of the nation will come into being.
Sahifeh-ye-Imam. V 7. P 237-238