By itself, memorizing five lines of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is not going to end homelessness in Tarrant County or anywhere else. The amount of pride and accomplishment on those students’ faces after their successful recitations cannot, however, be overstated. The image of four homeless women learning Lincoln’s address in the park where they sleep is incredible.

Education is a tool meant to enable human beings to live fully human lives. Each lesson is a step upward. Many of these students can fit their possessions into a grocery sack and cannot keep a library of books, but memorization allows them to carry the good, true, and beautiful things they have learned wherever they go. Because they are doing the work to remember crucial pieces of their country’s history, they now have one more tool in their journey out of homelessness.