We see everywhere Democracy spreading; but Democracy is on its trial, and unless it can evolve some method by which the wise shall rule, and not merely the weight of ignorant numbers, it will dig its own grave.

So long as you leave your people ignorant they are not fit to rule.

The schools should come before the vote, and knowledge before power.

You are proud of your liberty; you boast of a practically universal suffrage--leaving out, of course, one half of humanity!--but taking your male suffrage as you have it, how many of the voters who go to the poll know the principles of political history, know anything of economics, know anything of all the knowledge which is wanted for the guiding of the ship of the State through troubled waters?
You do not choose your captains out of people who know nothing of navigation; but you choose the makers of your rulers out of those who have not studied and do not know.

That is not wise.