It is important to have complete knowledge of a man who throughout a long life, sacrificed himself for what was, perhaps, the most fertile idea of modern times - the regeneration of nations by elementary education; a man who, passionately loving the people in spite of their ignorance and vices, sought to teach and raise them even before they had made themselves feared; a man who, in his ardent desire to help humanity, became, in turn, theologian, lawyer, agriculturalist, manufacturer, author, journalist, and schoolmaster; a man who, amid flattery from kings and people, never swerved a moment from his course; a man, finally, whose bold and original genius was, to the very last, combined with the openness, simplicity, and absolute trust of a child.