在18世纪和十九世纪，印刷品提出了智力的定义，优先考虑了目标，合理地使用思想，同时鼓励以严肃的，逻辑上有序的内容来鼓励公共言论的形式。理性时代与印刷文化的增长并存，首先是在欧洲，然后是美国，这绝非偶然。
(In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, print put forward a definition of intelligence that gave priority to the objective, rational use of the mind and at the same time encouraged forms of public discourse with serious, logically ordered content. It is no accident that the Age of Reason was coexistent with that growth of a print culture, first in Europe and then in America.)