Of all the sources of national wealth, may it not be affirmed that not only is the mind, the intellect of the community, the richest and the most considerable part, but that it is that which gives value, and riches, and beauty, and convenience, and comfort and refinement to everything else ... nations have been saved, and they have been destroyed, by a portion of their intellect ... a minority ... immorally educated, has often proved the scourge and the ruin of the whole country (emphasis in the original).
─Quoted in [Alexander] Campbell, “Address on the Responsibilities of a Man of Genius to the Members of the Union Literary Society of Miami University, Ohio,” Popular Lectures and Addresses, 80; Eames, The Philosophy of Alexander Campbell, 68-9; Alexander Campbell, “Of Common Schools,” 248-9.
Published in “The reluctant delegate: Alexander Campbell and the statehood movement in western Virginia,” by Jill Adana Rogers