In plain words
I hope that you will recognise this truth and, from now on, live your life as a serene and ideal life.
Students! Those whom you trust today as citizens, those you regard as officials, those you trust as leaders, whether in politics or in the life of faith: all of them too were once students. It is today's students who are tomorrow's citizens, tomorrow's officials, tomorrow's leaders. You must not forget this truth. We must recognise the truth that the country means its people. Shaping the country means nothing other than shaping the people. What does shaping the people mean? Our chief duty is just this: to refine them morally and in the way of Dharma. Refinement means rooting out the faults that are in us and in our daily life, and developing purity and good feelings: that is refinement. All of life rests on saṃskāra itself. We cannot eat the grain we have grown without refining it. Refining it means taking the husk off the grain, making it into rice, cooking it and eating it: only then is it refined. Likewise we cannot wear cotton as it grows, either. Only after we make it into thread and refine it into cloth do we wear it and get away from this misery of the cold. Even the crude gold that comes out of the earth takes shape as pure gold only when we refine it. So refinement means that we must put away the bad habits, bad deeds and bad thoughts that are in our daily life, and try to foster good feelings, good opinions and good conduct. A person's worth rests on refinement alone.
But today the government has no power to refine the people, whether economically, spiritually or morally. Nor have the people the strength and skill to refine the government. Seen from the spiritual point of view, it is because neither the government on this side nor the people on that side have the strength and capacity to refine, that today we must try to foster such sacred refinement in the students and make the right effort to develop it. In childhood itself, in student days themselves: this is when one must try to mould one's life well. So that we may come through as the best of citizens in our future life, we must try today to nourish our lives with good habits. Students are like the foundation of a building. They are like the roots of a tree. So only when we do not misuse this student stage but develop it with sacred feelings will it be possible, through this mansion of Śānti, to enjoy life and Ānanda.