“In our dreams we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.

We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers of mental learning or of science. We have not to raise from among them authors, editors, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen of whom we have ample supply.

The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one: To train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are... in the homes, in the shop, and on the farm.”

Occasional Paper No. 1, General Education Board, 1904