British and Danish policymakers in the long nineteenth century developed schools to support nation-building, industrialization, and democratization; yet they made different choices about the timing of public-school systems, workers’ access, variation of educational programs, pedagogical methods, and mechanisms for oversight. Beliefs about the purpose of education informed policy choices and fiction writers were important sources of ideas about education. British writers portrayed education as an essential tool for the cognitive development of the child and believed that a well-educated individual should master a prescribed curriculum to attain full selfhood. The right and left disagreed about the advisability of educating workers, yet even many on the left worried that educating the working class could “contaminate” the nation’s culture. Danish writers recognized the value of education for individual self-development, but both left and right also viewed schools for farmers and workers as essential for a strong society. Fiction writers joined political movements to put education and they fulfilled vital services in these movements. They were the spin doctors who provided cognitive frames about educational problems and solutions, and they popularized social problems with vivid, emotional language. A chorus of literary voices provided the soundtrack, inspiration, and subliminal messaging for campaigns supporting school development.