[Let us] look beyond the narrow space which now circumscribes our vision--beyond the passing, fleeting point of time on which we stand--and so cast our votes that the blessing of education shall be conferred on every son of Pennsylvania, shall be carried home to the poorest child of the poorest inhabitant of the meanest hut of your mountains, so that even he may be prepared to act well his part in this land of freedom.

-Thaddeus Stevens, April 1835, defending Pennsylvania’s new School Law