“No amount of book knowledge, as such—no memory of straggling undigested facts or details—no skimming of the area of knowledge of whatever, can make the scholar or the independent thinker. It is rather by investigating the relations of facts and things—by a close scrutiny of the reasons on which opinions are founded—by a right analysis of every subject brought before attention—that the student, at last, attains genuine cultivation of the intellect.”

—Adonijah Strong Welch, address before the Teachers’ Institute, 1851