3735. HISTORY, Value of.—
The most
effectual means of preventing the perversion of
power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as
practicable, the minds of the people at large,
and more especially to give them knowledge of
those facts, which history exhibits, that possessed
thereby of the experience of other ages
and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition
under all its shapes, and prompt to exert
their natural powers to defeat its purposes.—
Diffusion of Knowledge Bill.
Ford ed., ii, 221.
(1779)
