by the Revd. George Harris (later president of Amherst College)

Savagery is uniformity. The principal distinctions are sex, age, size and strength. Savages...think alike or not at all, and converse therefore in monosyllables. There is scarcely any variety, only a horde of men, women and children. The next higher stage, which is called barbarism, is marked by increased variety of functions. There is some division of labor, some interchange of thought, better leadership, more intellectual and aesthetic cultivation. The highest stage, which is called civilization, shows the greatest degree of specialization. Distinct functions become more numerous. Mechanical, commercial, educational, scientific, political and artistic occupations multiply. The rudimentary societies are characterized by the likeness of equality; the developed societies are marked by the unlikeness of inequality or variety. As we go down, monotony; as we go up, variety. As we go down, persons are more alike; as we go up, persons are more unlike, it certainly seems...as though [the] approach to equality is decline towards the conditions of savagery, and as though variety is an advance towards higher civilization...

Education is already so generally provided in America and other countries, that, without forecasting imaginary conditions, there is no difficulty in seeing how much equality is given by that opportunity...The same amount of time is given to all; the same courses are prescribed for all; the same teachers are appointed to all.  The opportunity is not merely open; it is forced upon all. Even under a socialistic program it is difficult to imagine any arrangement for providing the education which all are supposed to need more nearly equal than the existing system of public schools. Even Mr Bellamy [a prominent totalitarian socialist of the day] finds schools in the year 2000 A.D. modeled after those of the nineteenth-century. All things are changed except the schools...Behind fifty desks exactly alike fifty boys and girls are seated to recite a lesson prescribed to all...But the algebra is not an opportunity for the boy who has no turn for mathematics...Indeed, the more nearly equal the opportunity outwardly, the more unequal it is really. When the same instruction for the same number of hours a day by the same teachers is provided for fifty boys and girls, the majority have almost no opportunity at all. The bright scholars are held back...the dull scholars are unable to keep up...average scholars are discouraged because the brighter pupils accomplish their tasks so easily.