t only regenerate
themselves, but the community.

Again, I am not discouraged by the objection, that the laborer, if
encouraged to give time and strength to the elevation of his mind, will
starve himself and impoverish the country, when I consider the energy
and efficiency of mind. The highest force in the universe is mind.
This created the heavens and earth. This has changed the wilderness
into fruitfulness, and linked distant countries in a beneficent
ministry to one another's wants. It is not to brute force, to physical
strength, so much as to art, to skill, to intellectual and moral
energy, that men owe their mastery over the world. It is mind which
has conquered matter. To fear, then, that by calling forth a people's
mind, we shall impoverish and starve them, is to be frightened at a
shadow. I believe, that with the growth of intellectual and moral
power in the community, its productive power will increase, that
industry will become more efficient, that a wiser economy will
accumulate wealth, that unimagined resources of art and nature will be
discovered. I believe that the means of living will grow easier, in
proportion as a people shall become enlightened, self-respecting,
resolute, and just. Bodily or material forces can be measured, but not
the forces of the soul; nor can the results of increased mental energy
be foretold. Such a community will tread down obstacles now deemed
invincible, and turn them into helps. The inward moulds the outward.
The power of a people lies in its mind; and this mind, if fortified and
enlarged, will bring external things into harmony with itself. It will
create a new world around it, corresponding to itself. If, however, I
err in this belief; if, by securing time and means for improvement to
the multitude, industry and capital should become less productive, I
still say, Sacrifice the wealth, and not the mind of a people. Nor do
I believe that the physical good of a community would in this way be
impaired. The diminution of a country's wealth, occasioned by general
attention to intellectual and moral culture, would be followed by very
different effects from those which would attend an equal diminution
brought about by sloth, intemperance, and ignorance. There would
indeed be less production in such a country, but the character and
spirit of the people would effect a much more equal distribution of
what would be produced; and the happiness of a community depends vastly