“The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated—quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.”
About This Quote
September 30, 1859 Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
More from Abraham Lincoln
“Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the…”
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from…”
“In reference to you, colored people, let me say God has made you free. Although you have…”
“My poor friends, you are free, free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample…”