It is, furthermore, a vital necessity to establish schools
throughout Persia, even in the smallest country towns and villages, and to
encourage the people in every possible way to have their children learn to read
and write. If necessary, education should even be made compulsory. Until the
nerves and arteries of the nation stir into life, every measure that is
attempted will prove vain; for the people are as the human body, and
determination and the will to struggle are as the soul, and a soulless body
does not move. This dynamic power is present to a superlative degree in the
very nature of the Persian people, and the spread of education will release it.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘The Secret of Divine
Civilization’)
