MATTHEW HALE CARPENTER

And now when our maimed soldiers have returned from the Civil War and apply for Federal office, the duties of which they are perfectly competent to discharge, they will be rejected to give places to those who were cramming themselves with facts and principles from the books, while they were bleeding for their country, because they do not know the fluctuations of the tide at the Cape of Good Hope, how near the moon ever approaches the earth, or the names of the principal rivers emptying into the Caspian Sea.

Annexation [of Mexico] … because the United States is destined to supplant all other governments on this continent [and] … leading Mexico to a higher plane of civilization.

So, sir, it comes to this at last, that … the dunce who had been crammed up to a diploma at Yale, and comes fresh from his cramming, will be preferred in all civil service appointments to the ablest, most successful, and most upright business man of the country, who either did not enjoy the benefit of early education, or from whose mind, long engrossed in practical pursuits, the details and niceties of academic knowledge have faded away as the headlands disappear when the mariner bids his native land good night.

Annexation [of Mexico] … because the United States is destined to supplant all other governments on this continent [and] … leading Mexico to a higher plane of civilization.

So, sir, it comes to this at last, that … the dunce who had been crammed up to a diploma at Yale, and comes fresh from his cramming, will be preferred in all civil service appointments to the ablest, most successful, and most upright business man of the country, who either did not enjoy the benefit of early education, or from whose mind, long engrossed in practical pursuits, the details and niceties of academic knowledge have faded away as the headlands disappear when the mariner bids his native land good night.

And now when our maimed soldiers have returned from the Civil War and apply for Federal office, the duties of which they are perfectly competent to discharge, they will be rejected to give places to those who were cramming themselves with facts and principles from the books, while they were bleeding for their country, because they do not know the fluctuations of the tide at the Cape of Good Hope, how near the moon ever approaches the earth, or the names of the principal rivers emptying into the Caspian Sea.