Horace Mann Writes to the Massachusetts Board of Education

That Plotical Economy, therefore, whcih busies itself about capital and labor, supply and demand, interest and rents, favourable and unfavourable balances of trade; but leaves out of account the element of a wide-spread mental development, is nought but stupendous folly. The greatest of all the arts in political economy is, to change a consumer into a producer; and the next greatest is to increase the producer's producing power; - an end to be directly attained, by increasing his intelligence. (Cremin, 89)