King's real concern here isn't merely asking students to use their brains—it's warning against the factory model of education that merely stuffs minds with approved facts. Notice he distinguishes between *intensive* thought (going deep, wrestling with difficulty) and *critical* thought (questioning assumptions, including those of authorities). A student who memorizes every historical date but never asks *why* we remember certain events and forget others has received a partial education at best. When your teenager comes home parroting talking points from social media without examining the sources, that's the enemy King identified: a mind that's been trained to accept rather than evaluate.