Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 99 of historian William Manchester's 1992 book A World Lit Only by Fire; here, Manchester is writing about 16th-century Europe:

[T]he sons of merchants led the way in learning foreign languages.  They were already among the most attentive pupils.  The growth of industry gave education a new urgency.  Literacy had been an expensive indulgence in an agrarian culture, but in an urban, merchant world it was mandatory.