The glory of America, in his view--its pre-eminence above all the exhausted and decayed civilizations of the Old World--was to be found in popular education.

It was the distinguishing feature of our new and abounding national life.

Drop it, falter, recede, and the darkness that now hangs over England, and the thick darkness that envelops the degenerating hordes of the Continent, would settle down upon fair America, and blot her out forever from the list of the earth's teeming nations.

He would pay good wages to teachers.

He would improve school-houses, and he would do it as a matter of economy.