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have been politicians, too, who, in their eagerness for power, have maintained the doctrine that the mass of mankind were happier if left in a state of ignorance. But it will be perceived that in all these cases, the power of education, in the formation of human character, is fully admitted and understood. The despot fears instruction, for it would teach the people their rights, and give them strength to overturn his dominion. The crafty priest, who seeks to exercise a harsher tyranny than that of kings, a tyranny over the mind, resists education, for it would show his superstitions to be the mere phantoms of a base juggler. And the politician, who "deems ignorance to be bliss," is obviously seduced into the notion that the mass of mankind are made to be slaves, merely by his wish to use them as such; thus admitting that ignorance tends to rivet the chains of bondage, and knowledge to cut them asunder.

Nor have I yet enumeratad all the difficulties with which Education has to contend. Even here in New England, where its importance has been admitted since the first landing of the Pilgrims, the lingering clouds of a dark age hang over the community. We see that even in Massachusetts, nine-tenths of the people fail of success in life, fail of attaining the true end of existence, through defective education. How is this? Go into society and you will find the cause. You will find that while the press is teeming with books, papers, and pamphlets upon this great subject; while the pulpit presses it upon the attention of the people; while the lecturer before the lyceum and the orator in our legislative halls are pouring forth eloquent appeals in behalf of education, that the people at large are still insensible to its real value, are still ignorant of its real compass and meaning?

Take a single point as an illustration. Look at our common schools. These seminaries are one of the most essential engines of instruction, and they obviously depend upon their teachers for success. Yet there is a current notion that any body can be a schoolmaster. The cultivator of the soil, indeed, must be trained to his task but the cultivation of the immortal mind may depend on instinct. The watch with its delicate wheels, its thread-like cogs, its hair-strung balance, may not be entrusted to a blacksmith, but a finer and nobler mechanism may be entrusted to an inexperienced bungler. I have heard of a man, who insisted that learning in a teacher was a positive hindrance to success. He was accustomed to

illustrate his opinions in the following manner: "When the prophet desired to blow down the walls of Jericho, he did not take a brass trumpet or a polished French horn; but he took a ram's horn, a plain natural ram's horn, just at it grew. And SO if you desire to overturn the Jericho of ignorance, you must not take a college learnt gentleman, but a plain, natural, ramʼshorn sort of a man, like me."

This may seem a little too absurd for practical illustration, but do we not meet with views in society which bear some analogy to it? How then can we be surprised if it often happens that the minds of children, subjected to the charge of unskilful teachers, are either injured or neglected, so as to render their operations capricious and uncertain as the ill-regulated watch.

Miss Hamilton, in her admirable work on Education, says that when a child, she read the passage of Scripture," on this hang all the law and the prophets," as an injunction, a command, and accordingly she fancied the law and the prophets hanging up in a row on pegs! And she remarks, that so strong hold did this ludicrous error take of her mind, that it often occurred to her, after she arrived at mature years. I once knew a boy, in the olden days of Webster's Grammar, who found this definition in his book: "A noun is the name of a thing, as horse, hair, justice." But he chanced to misconceive it, and read it thus: A noun is the name of a thing, as horse-hair justice. He was of a reflecting turn, and long he pondered over the wonderful mysteries of a noun. But in vain; he could not make it out. His father was a justice of the peace, and one day, when the boy went home, the old gentleman was holding a justice's court. There he sat in state, among a crowd of people, on an old-fashioned horse-hair settee. A new light now broke in upon our young hero's mind. My father, said he, mentally, is a horse-hair justice, and therefore a noun !

Such are the grotesque vagaries of the youthful intellect, left to itself. How strong then is its claim to the assistance of an experienced and careful guide! — And yet, it is a current notion in society, that specific instruction and technical preparation are not necessary to the schoolmaster!

We have come then to the conclusion, that it is the law of man's nature that his physical, moral, and intellectual faculties must be unfolded by education; that man without education is a savage, but little elevated above the brutes that perish;

while by means of education, he may be exalted to a rank but little lower than the angels. By proper treatment, the body may be trained to grace, activity, and endurance; by instruction, the mind may be enriched with exhaustless stores of knowledge and wisdom; by education, the evil passions may be laid to habitual repose; while the nobler and more generous qualities may be developed and brought into such prompt and habitual action as to pervade the whole character. Education may be the instrument of rendering the highest and most exalted portions of our nature triumphant over the grosser attributes of flesh and blood.

Education, then, is the lever, and the only lever, that can lift mankind from the native mire of ignorance. That lever is put into our hands, and how shall we use it? We live in a civilized community. Every individual among us can understand the value of that culture which raises a man from the savage to the civilized state. Is it not the duty of every person to use his utmost efforts to carry the benefits of this culture to each member of society? Is there any one who can look on the rising generation and say that he has no interest in this matter? If so, then is he self-exiled from his race, cut off from all sympathy with his kindred and his kind. That man who is thus cold and thus indifferent must be wrapped in the gloom of miserable ignorance, or encased in the triple mail of selfishness. Like ice in a refrigerator, surrounded by a non-conducting layer of charcoal, to shut out the chance of being influenced by the breath of summer, he is bound in the chill security of that philosophy which lays down its code of life in a single dogma TAKE CARE OF NO. 1.! There let him rest. To such I speak not. I speak to those who acknowledge and feel the obligation to promote the best interests of the whole community, as far as they are able. And this does not permit a regard only to the present hour, but it demands the exercise of that high gift of reason, which enables us to read the future by a perusal of the past. And whether we look to the present or coming generation, is not education one of those great interests which wisdom calls upon us to cherish? Is it not the grand instrument by which the human race must be exalted? Is it not the power, indicated by the plain teachings of nature, by which man is to be redeemed from ignorance? And is there any one who is willing to take upon himself the

trust conferred upon every member of civilized society, and lay it down again, having done nothing for this great cause?

If our view of this subject be right; if education is the law of man's nature, as instinct is the law of animals; if man is marked as the subject of a peculiar design, a design which places him in contrast to every other living thing; and if this design be that his faculties are to be developed, his character formed, the end of his being secured, only through education; how plain is our duty? If we seek to cultivate a plant with success, we proceed according to the design of its Maker. We learn its nature, and follow this as the only sure guide. Now God has written on man, in letters not to be mistaken, This being is made to be educated. Without education, he is a savage; by its aid, he may be exalted to a station but little lower than that of the angels. What then is the duty of rulers - of those who are charged with the great interests of society? Can they neglect this obvious means of improving the condition of mankind without sin? Nature and providence point out the method by which the human race is to be exalted. No one can overlook or mistake it. Ought not education, then, to be laid at the foundation of our political system? Ought not provision to be made by every government, in every country, for the instruction of all the people in that knowledge which is necessary to enable them to form just opinions upon all the great questions of life? In our country, where the government is placed in the hands of the people, ought we not especially to make arrangements for the education of every member of society to this extent? In the choice of legislators, ought we not carefully to select only those who entertain just views on this subject?

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I am afraid there is great error, or at least dangerous indifference, even among enlightened men as to this matter. people ought to consider the point well, and exact of those who are charged with the business of legislation a conscientious and wise performance of their high duty in respect to education.

Let us, for a moment, consider the influence exercised by the legislature over the community. This body consists of the delegates of the people. It is regarded as the assembled wisdom of the state. The acts of the assembly go home to every man's mind, and produce their effect. If they enact a law, it lays its heavy impress upon the whole mass of society. Even

in despotic countries, where the people look upon the lawgiver with aversion, and fear the government as an adversary, even there, the legislative edicts fashion the manners of the people, establish the standard of morals, and become the mould into which the opinions of society are cast. If such be the power of legislation in a monarchical country, what must it be here, where it flows from the people themselves? If society can be shaped by authority which it hates and resists, how much more will it be influenced where it consents and approves. The peeple of this country do, in fact, look with profound respect to the acts of their legislators. They will be slow to despise what their assembled counsellors approve. If you move the heart, the remotest pulse in the human frame beats in unison with it. The legislature is to the people as the central organ of vitality to the life-blood of the body. It can, if it will, give a quickening impulse to the cause of education, which will reach every hill and valley, every house and hamlet, in the

state.

Let the lawgivers of the land speak, then, and the people will hear! There is an echo in a legislative hall which dies not. Its edicts are whispered from hill to hill, from heart to heart, and still continue to live when those who framed them are sleeping in the dust. The spirit of the pilgrims is still breathing upon us from their statutes. The laws framed by this generation will go down to have their influence on the next. Let the people, then, who are now on the active stage of life, look to this subject, and call upon their rulers to discharge their trust on this point with fidelity!

rance.

Again, if our view of this matter be right; if it is the design of the Creator that man be the subject of education; if through enlightened education alone he can be led forward in the path of his duty and his destiny; how iniquitous are all those schemes of government which keep any class of men in designed ignoThe light of Heaven is not more the right of all than the light of knowledge; and a scheme to appropriate to a privileged class of persons the glorious rays of the sun, while all beside are to be wrapped in the chill shadows of night, would not be more a conspiracy against the natural rights of man, than is any system which would shut out from the view of the people at large the intellectual light imparted by education. Yet such has been, and still is, the very basis of most of the political institutions of the Eastern Hemisphere. From the founding

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