[Library of Congress mural painting with inscription: Educate and inform the mass of the people - enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order and they will preserve them - enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppression of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of the day."]"

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The inscription sets this mural apart. It is a passage attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who argued that an informed public was the best guard against tyranny and that citizens who understood their stake in order would defend it. The mural is in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., an institution that grew from Jefferson's own book collection, which he sold to Congress after the British burned the Capitol's earlier library in 1814. The caption card gives no date or artist, so the photograph is best read as a record of the building's decorative program, which ties civic education to the library's public purpose.

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