Still, obscurantists of the most recalcitrant sort were losing ground during the ancien régime. Their simple-minded program of denying education to the poor seemed increasingly impractical even to those who shared many of the obscurantists' fears. For one thing, the growing economic, fiscal, and demographic crises whose manifestations were clear, even if their causes were not, called for a more active and determined program. Simply leaving the poor to their own devices meant abandoning any effort at all to shape their direction, and ran the risk of letting the ambitious among them become a real threat. The emergent epistemology based on sensation, so central to Enlightenment thought, emphasized the role of early experiences in the shaping of human ideas and human behavior. This suggested that influence over youth were too valuable a form of power to be left to chance. "The people" were learning one way or another; it was certainly better for the leaders of the state and civil society to take popular education into their own hands and direct it, in their own self-interest as well as that of the people.

— Schooling in Western Europe by Mary Jo Maynes (Page 39)