But let us recur once more to the economical part of the argument. When a community is taxed for the support of common schools, the question naturally rises among the taxpayers, Is the system worth the cost? Does the community, by the diffusion of knowledge and education, gain enough to counterbalance the large expense which such education involves? Even if this question could not be answered in the affirmative, it would not follow that common schools should be dispensed with. Common schools are needed as the best and cheapest protection against the crimes incident to an ignorant and degraded population. Common schools are right and proper, because without them the majority of those created in the image of God will never attain to that noble manhood which is their rightful inheritance. But the argument will receive additional force, if it can be shown that general education increases the wealth of the community. That education does have this effect is evident, I think, from two independent lines of argument. First, an intelligent, educated man is capable individually of achieving greater material results than one who is ignorant. Secondly, the general diffusion of intelligence through a community leads to labor-saving inventions, and thus increases its producing power. In regard to the first line of argument, some curious and instructive facts were collected a few years since by the late Horace Mann. His inquiries were directed to the efficiency of operatives in factories, a class of men who would seem to require as little general intelligence as any kind of laborers. It was found that, as a general rule, those operatives who could sign their names to their weekly receipts for money, were able to do one-third more work, and to do it better, than those who made their mark. Nor is this at all to be wondered at. There is no kind of work, done by the aid of human muscle, that is purely mechanical. Mind is partner in all that the body does. Mind directs and controls muscle, and even in emergency gives it additional energy and power. No matter how simple the process in which an operative may be engaged, some cultivation of his mental powers is needed. Without it he misdirects his own movements, and mistakes continually the orders of his superintending workman. A boy who has been to a good common school, and has had his mental activities quickened, and whose mind has been stimulated and roused by worthy motives, not only will be more industrious for it when he becomes a man, but his industry will be more effective. He will accomplish more, even as a day laborer, than the mere ignorant boor. When we come to any kind of skilled labor, the difference between the educated and the ignorant is still more apparent. An intelligent mechanic is worth twice as much as one ignorant and stupid.