[Jarwain]

Well the argument for that at the time was that the only people who really received any halfway decent education were wealthy white landowning men. The idea being that education's important for comparing policy and making a good decision re: representation, or more generally that an educated populace is important for a functioning democracy.

And in that I kinda agree; an educated population is Important for a functioning democracy. While the mindset/culture/resource limitations of the time resulted in that being both discriminatory and classist, it's different today since we have universal standards of education.

Whether our current standards are good enough is a different argument