I agree! As much as parents are responsible for the upbringing of their own children, the personal development of everyone else's children comes under the aegis of a teacher's responsibility towards the society. The influence a teacher has on his/her students may not be direct or obvious, but if he/she is truly worth his/her salt, traces of his/her ideals, principles, and philosophy trickle into the psyche of his/her students. These, then, find expression in the personalities of those students and the way they conduct themselves in various walks of their lives. This phenomenon is what we call INSPIRATION. All teachers impart valuable life lessons to their students, but those who manage to do so by making the students absorb all the wisdom with as less mugging up of knowledge as possible, are the ones that are truly looked up to. In essence, the best teacher is one who can awaken, in his/her students, an eternal thirst for knowledge and kill any inkling of inhibition in them, that keeps them from asking questions. Herein lies the greatest importance of a teacher - he/she should show students the way to accumulate knowledge, instead of serving it to them on a platter.