This is a particularly fun quote from Charles H. Ham's Mind and Hand, 1886 in light of the research linking the hand with the efficacy of thought:

The... extreme conservatism (in schools) is shown by the remark of a prominent educator who opposes the incorporation of manual training in the curriculum of the public schools. He says, "Some even go so far as to regard the fingers as a new avenue to the brain, and think that great pedagogic advantages will be given by the new method, so that boys may make equal attainments in arithmetic, reading and grammar in less time... They (teachers) will still find the eye and ear nearer to the brain than the hand." No assumption could be more false than this, that the eye and the ear are more important organs than the hand because they are located, physically, nearer the brain.