Every man ought to be above his position in the sense of being more than his position. To be king and nothing more, judge and nothing more, tallowe-handler and nothing more, is to allow the accident to swallow up the essence, and prove a miserable failure when measured by the true standard of human worth. A wise man would scorn to be like the tower of Pisa, leaning everlastingly one way; and as each special occupation has its own tendencies to narrowness, exclusiveness, and misconception, one continuous object of education should be to give scope and elbow-room in other directions. When governments, or societies, with imperial rescripts, acts of parliament, or conventionalities, hedge men round with directions and prohibitions, we rejoice in the brave spirits who manfully do what they are told not to do; and part of everybody’s education should be a training to resist the slavery by which custom is always trying to enthrall the world.

~Henry James Slack (1818–1896), The Philosophy of Progress in Human Affairs, “Chapter XIII: Education,” 1860