In that respect, and in that only, Charles Sumner was like him, but Sumner, in almost every other quality, was quite different from his three associa… - Henry Adams

...education should try to lessen the obstacles, diminish the friction, invigorate the energy, and should train minds to react, not at haphazard, but by choice, on the lines of force that attract their world. What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn. Throughout human history the waste of mind has been appalling, and, as this story is meant to show, society has conspired to promote it. No doubt the teacher is the worst criminal, but the world stands behind him and drags the student from his course. The moral is stentorian. Only the most energetic, the most highly fitted, and the most favored have overcome the friction or the viscosity of inertia, and these were compelled to waste three-fourths of their energy in doing it.

The world grew cheap, as worlds must.

Science itself had been crowded so close to the edge of the abyss that its attempts to escape were as metaphysical as the leap.