The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: derived, not merely from the extension of education over a wider area, but
from the continuance of it during many generations. Educated parents will
have children fit to receive education; and these again will grow up under
circumstances far more favourable to the growth of intelligence than any
which have hitherto existed in our own or in former ages.
Even if we were to suppose no more men of genius to be produced, the great
writers of ancient or of modern times will remain to furnish abundant
materials of education to the coming generation. Now that every nation
holds communication with every other, we may truly say in a fuller sense
than formerly that 'the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the
suns.' They will not be 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' within a province
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