CHAPTER IX. POLITICAL NECESSITY OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.-- Washington . I do not hesitate to affirm not only that a knowledge of the true principles of government is important and useful to Americans, but that it is absolutely indispensable to carry on the government of their choice, and to transmit it to their posterity.-- Judge Story .

Every succeeding section of the last chapter went to show more and more clearly that, in proportion as the benign influences of a correct education are diffused among and enjoyed by the members of any community, will existing evils of every kind be diminished, and blessings be increased in number and degree. The subject of popular education, then, claims, and should receive, the sympathy and active support of every philanthropist and Christian, without regard to country or clime. We come now to consider a topic in which every patriot, and especially every true American, as such, must feel a lively interest.

Every citizen of our wide-spread country should be fully persuaded that the education of the people is the only permanent basis of national prosperity not only, but of national safety. This, in theory, is now conceded, and the importance of education is very generally admitted among men, especially in our own country. It is evident, however, that the conviction of its importance is not so deeply inwrought into the mind of society as it ought to be, for it does not manifest itself with all the power of earnest feeling in behalf of education which the subject, in view of its acknowledged weightiness, justly demands.

The objects and advantages of education heretofore considered apply equally to men of every nation and clime, under whatever form of government they may chance to dwell. It is otherwise in regard to the political necessity of popular education. Here a particular training is required to fit men for the government under which they are to live. In despotic governments, the object of popular education is to make good subjects, while upon us devolves the higher responsibility of so educating the people that they may become not only good subjects, but good sovereigns—all power originating in and returning to the sovereign people.

Only seventy-four years ago, our fathers of the ever-memorable Revolution pledged "fortune, life, and sacred honor" to establish the independence of these United States. Under the fostering care of republican institutions, the tide of population rolled rapidly inland, crossing the Alleganies, sweeping over the vast Valley of the Mississippi, nor resting in its onward course until it settled on the waters of the Columbia and the shores of the Pacific. Previous to the Revolutionary war, the English settlements were confined to the Atlantic coast; now the tide of immigration seems to be to the shores of the Pacific, where states are multiplying and cities springing up as by magic. In a little more than half a century, the states of the Union have increased in number from thirteen to thirty, and in population in a ratio hitherto unprecedented, from three millions to twenty-five millions of souls.

We stand in the same relation to posterity that our ancestors do to us. Each generation has duties of its own to perform; and our duties, though widely different from those of our forefathers, are not less important in their character or less binding in their obligations. It was their duty to found or establish our institutions, and nobly did they perform it. It is our especial and appropriate duty to perfect and perpetuate the institutions we have received at their hands. The boon they would bequeath to the latest posterity can never reach and bless them except through our instrumentality. Upon each present generation rest the duty and the obligation of educating and qualifying for usefulness that which immediately succeeds, upon which, in turn, will devolve a like responsibility. Each succeeding generation will, in the main, be what the preceding has made it. From this responsible agency there is, there can be, no escape.

Trusts, responsibilities, and interests, vaster in amount and more sacred in character than have ever, in the providence of God, been committed to any people, are now intrusted to us. The great experiment of the capacity of man for self-government is being tried anew—an experiment which, wherever it has been tried, has failed, through an incapacity in the people to enjoy liberty without abusing it. We are, I doubt not, now educating the very generation during whose lifetime this great question will be decided. The present generation will, to a great extent, be responsible for the result, whatever it may be. We are, therefore, called upon, as American citizens and Christian philanthropists, to do all that in us lies to secure to this experiment a successful issue; to make this the leading nation of the earth, and a model worthy of imitation by all others. Never before this has a nation been planted with so hopeful an opportunity for becoming the universal benefactor of the race.

If for the next fifty years the population of these American States shall continue to increase as during the last fifty, we shall exceed a hundred millions; and in a century, allowing the same ratio of increase, the population will equal that of the Old World. Here, then, is a continent to be filled with innumerable millions of human beings, who may be happy through our wisdom, but who must be miserable through our folly. We may disregard such considerations, but we can not escape the tremendous responsibilities rolling in upon us in view of the relations we sustain to the past and the future. We delight to honor, in words, those heroes and martyrs from whom we have received the rich boon of civil and religious liberty. Let us then, in deeds, imitate the examples we profess to admire, and contribute our full quota, as individuals and as a generation, toward perfecting and perpetuating the institutions we have received, that they may be enjoyed by those countless millions who are to succeed us in this broad empire.

"In this exigency," to adopt the language of an enlightened practical educator and eminent statesman, "we need far more of wisdom and rectitude than we possess. Preparations for our present condition have been so long neglected, that we now have a double duty to perform. We have not only to propitiate to our aid a host of good spirits, but we have to exorcise a host of evil ones. Every aspect of our affairs, public and private, demonstrates that we need, for their successful management, a vast accession to the common stock of intelligence and virtue. But intelligence and virtue are the product of cultivation and training. They do not spring up spontaneously. We need, therefore, unexampled alacrity and energy in the application of all those influences and means which promise the surest and readiest returns of wisdom and probity, both public and private.

"When the Declaration of Independence was carried into effect, and the Constitution of the United States was adopted, the civil and political relations of the generation then living, and of all succeeding ones, were changed. Men were no longer the same men, but were clothed with new rights and responsibilities. Up to that period, so far as government was concerned, they might have been ignorant; indeed, it has generally been held that where a man's only duty is obedience, it is better that he should be ignorant; for why should a beast of burden be endowed with the sensibilities of a man! Up to that period, so far as government was concerned, a man might have been unprincipled and flagitious. He had no access to the statute-book to alter or repeal its provisions, so as to screen his own violations of the moral law from punishment, or to legalize the impoverishment and ruin of his fellow-beings. But with the new institutions, there came new relations, and an immense accession of powers. New trusts of inappreciable value were devolved upon the old agents and upon their successors, irrevocably.

"With the change in the organic structure of our government, there should have been corresponding changes in all public measures and institutions. For every dollar given by the wealthy or by the state to colleges to cultivate the higher branches of knowledge, a hundred should have been given for primary education. For every acre of land bestowed upon an academy, a province should have been granted to common schools. Select schools for select children should have been discarded, and universal education should have joined hands with universal suffrage."[56]

In the simplest form of civil government, there must exist a legislative, a judicial, and an executive department. But no expression of the national will in a system of laws can be sufficiently definite to supersede the necessity of a perpetual succession of Legislatures to supply defects, and to meet emergencies as they arise. However well-informed men may be, and however pure the motives by which they are actuated, all experience hath shown that subjects will come up for consideration that will strike different minds in a variety of forms. This, in a popular government, gives rise to opposing parties. Every man, then, in casting his vote for members of the Legislature, needs to understand what important questions will be likely to come before that branch of the government for settlement, to have examined them in their various bearings, and to have deliberately made up his opinion in relation to the interests involved, in order to vote understandingly; otherwise he will be as likely to oppose as to promote, not only the welfare of the state, but his own most cherished interests.

The same remark that has been made in relation to the legislative department will apply to both the judicial and executive, and to the general government as well as to the several state governments. When the appointed day arrives for deciding the various questions of state and national policy which divide men into opposing parties, there can be no delay. These various and conflicting questions must be decided, whether much or little preparation has been made, or none at all. And, what is most extraordinary, each voter helps to decide every question which agitates the community as much by not voting as by voting. If the question is so vast or so complicated that any one has not time to examine and make up his mind in relation to it, or if any one is too conscientious to act from conjecture in cases of magnitude, and therefore stays from the polls, another, who has no scruples about acting ignorantly, or from caprice, or malevolence, votes, and, in the absence of the former, decides the question against the right.

However simple our government may be in theory, it has proved, in practice, the most complex government on earth. More questions for legislative interposition, and for judicial exposition and construction, have already arisen under it, ten to one, than have arisen during the same length of time under any other form of government in Christendom. We are a Union of thirty states; a great nation composed of thirty separate nations; and even beyond these, the confederacy is responsible for the fate of vast territories, with their increasing population, and of numerous Indian tribes. Among the component states, there is the greatest variety of customs, institutions, and religions. Then we have the deeper inbred differences of language and ancestry among us, our population being made up of the lineage of all nations. Our industrial pursuits, also, are various; and, with a great natural diversity of soil and climate, they must always continue to be so. Moreover, across the very center of our territory a line is drawn, on one side of which all labor is voluntary, while on the opposite side a system of involuntary servitude prevails.

If, then, general intelligence and popular virtue are necessary for the successful administration of even the simplest forms of government, and if these qualities are required in a higher and still higher degree in proportion to the complexity of a government, then are both intelligence and virtue necessary in this government to an extent indefinitely beyond what has ever been required in any other. And especially is this true when we consider that our government is representative as it regards the people, and federative as it regards the states; and that, in this respect, it has no precedent on the file of nations. We hence require a double portion of general intelligence and practical wisdom. But men are not born in the possession of these requisites to self-government, neither are they necessarily developed in the growth from infancy to manhood. They are the product of cultivation and training, and can be secured only through good schools opened to and enjoyed by all our youth. The stability of this government requires that universal education should precede universal suffrage.

Under a free government, the intelligence of the people, coupled with their virtue, will be found to be a sure index to a nation's prosperity, and to the individual and social well-being of all who enjoy its protection. God is a being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and no part of his government can be successfully administered except upon the principles of knowledge and virtue. The success that attends a nation of freemen will depend upon the extent to which these are cultivated, and the universality of their dissemination in the body politic. While the cultivation of these will increase the safety of the government, their neglect will hasten its downfall.

Judge Story, in a lecture upon the importance of the science of government as a branch of popular education, has well remarked, that "it is not to rulers and statesman alone that the science of government is important and useful. It is equally indispensable for every American citizen, to enable him to exercise his own rights, to protect his own interests, and to secure the public liberties and the just operations of public authority. A republic, by the very constitution of its government, requires, on the part of the people, more vigilance and constant exertion than any other form of government. The American Republic, above all others, demands from every citizen unceasing vigilance and exertion, since we have deliberately dispensed with every guard against danger or ruin except the intelligence and virtue of the people themselves. It is founded on the basis that the people have wisdom enough to frame their own system of government, and public spirit enough to preserve it; that they can not be cheated out of their liberties, and they will not submit to have them taken from them by force. We have silently assumed the fundamental truth that, as it never can be the interest of the majority of the people to prostrate their own political equality and happiness, so they never can be seduced by flattery or corruption, by the intrigues of faction or the arts of ambition, to adopt any measures which shall subvert them. If this confidence in ourselves is justified—and who among Americans does not feel a pride in endeavoring to maintain it?—let us never forget that it can be justified only by a watchfulness and zeal in proportion to our confidence. Let us never forget that we must prove ourselves wiser, better, and purer than any other nation ever has yet been, if we are to count upon success. Every other republic has fallen by the discords and treachery of its own citizens. It has been said by one of our own departed statesmen, himself a devout admirer of popular government, that power is perpetually stealing from the many to the few."

The institutions of a republic are endangered by the ignorance of the masses on the one hand, and by intelligent, but unprincipled and vicious aspirants to office and places of emolument on the other. Where these two classes coexist to any considerable extent, the safety of the republic is jeoparded; for they have a strong sympathy with each other, and it is the constant policy of the latter to increase the number of the former. They arouse their passions and stimulate their appetites, and then lead them in a way they know not. A barrel of whisky, or even of hard cider, with a "hurrah!" will control ten to one more of this class of voters than will the soundest arguments of enlightened and honorable statesmen. And yet one of these votes thus procured, when deposited in the ballot-box, counts the same as the vote of a Washington or a Franklin!

There is one remedy, and but one, for this alarming state of things, which prevails to a less or greater extent in almost every community. That remedy is simple. It consists in the establishment of schools for the education of the whole people. These schools, however, should be of a more perfect character than the majority of those which have hitherto existed. In them the principles of morality should be copiously intermingled with the principles of science. Cases of conscience should alternate with lessons in the rudiments. The rule requiring us to do to others as we would that they should do unto us, should be made as familiar as the multiplication table, and our youth should become as familiar with the practical application of the one as of the other. The lives of great and good men should be held up for admiration and example, and especially the life and character of Jesus Christ, as the sublimest pattern of benevolence, of purity, and of self-sacrifice ever exhibited to mortals. In every course of studies, all the practical and preceptive parts of the Gospel should be sacredly inculcated, and all dogmatical theology and sectarianism sacredly excluded. In no school should the Bible be opened to reveal the sword of the polemic, but to unloose the dove of peace.

In connection with the preceding, and in addition to the branches now commonly taught in our schools, the study of politics, which has been beautifully defined as the art of making a people happy, should be generally introduced. "I am not aware," says an eminent jurist,[57] "that there are any solid objections which can be urged against introducing the science of government into our common schools as a branch of popular education. If it should be said that it will have a tendency to introduce party creeds and party dogmas into our schools, the true answer is, that the principles of government should be there taught, and not the creeds or dogmas of any party. The principles of the Constitution under which we live; the principles upon which republics generally are founded, by which they are sustained, and through which they must be saved; the principles of public policy, by which national prosperity is secured, and national ruin averted—these certainly are not party creeds or party dogmas, but are fit to be taught at all times and on all occasions, if any thing which belongs to human life and our own condition is fit to be taught. If we wait until we can guard ourselves against every possible chance of abuse before we introduce any system of instruction, we shall wait until the current of time has flowed into the ocean of eternity. There is nothing which ever has been or ever can be taught without some chance of abuse; nay, without some absolute abuse. Even religion itself, our truest and our only lasting hope and consolation, has not escaped the common infirmity of our nature. If it never had been taught until it could be taught with the purity, simplicity, and energy of the apostolic age, we ourselves, instead of being blessed with the bright and balmy influences of Christianity, should now have been groping our way in the darkness of heathenism, or left to perish in the cold and cheerless labyrinths of skepticism."

Lord Brougham, one of the most powerful advocates of popular education in our day, has made the following remarks, which can not be more fitly addressed to any people than to the citizens of the American States. "A sound system of government," says this transatlantic writer, "requires the people to read and inform themselves upon political subjects; else they are the prey of every quack, every impostor, and every agitator who may practice his trade in the country. If they do not read; if they do not learn; if they do not digest by discussion and reflection what they have read and learned; if they do not qualify themselves to form opinions for themselves, other men will form opinions for them, not according to the truth and the interests of the people, but according to their own individual and selfish interest, which may, and most probably will, be contrary to that of the people at large."

Two very important inquiries here naturally suggest themselves to us: they are, first, whether there is at present in this country a degree of intelligence sufficient for the wise administration of its affairs; and secondly, whether existing provisions for the education of our country's youth are adequate to the wants of a great and free people, who are endeavoring to demonstrate to the world that great problem of nations—the capability of man for self-government. We judge of the literary attainments of the citizens of a state or of a nation, as a whole, by comparing all the individual members thereof with a given standard, and of their arrangements for educating the rising generation by the character of their schools, and the proportion of the population that receive instruction in them. Let us test the existing standard of education in various states of this Union in both of these respects.

Degree of popular Intelligence.—According to the census of 1840,[58] the total population of the United States was, in round numbers, seventeen millions. Of this number, five hundred and fifty thousand were whites over twenty years of age, who could not read and write. The proportion varies in different states, from one in five hundred and eighty-nine in Connecticut, to one in eleven in North Carolina.

If we exclude, in the estimate, all colored persons, and whites under twenty years of age, the proportion will stand thus: in the United States, one to every twelve is unable to read and write. The proportion varies in the different states, from one in two hundred and ninety-four in Connecticut, which stands the highest, to one in three in North Carolina, which stands the lowest. In Tennessee the proportion is one in four. In Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas, each, one in five. In Delaware and Alabama, each, one in six. In Indiana, one in seven. In Illinois and Wisconsin, each, one in eight.

On the brighter end of the scale, next to Connecticut, in which the proportion is one in two hundred and ninety-four, is New Hampshire, in which the proportion is one in one hundred and fifty-nine. In Massachusetts it is one in ninety. In Maine, one in seventy-two. In Vermont, one in sixty-three. Next in order comes Michigan, in which the proportion is one in thirty-nine.[59]

But these statements in relation to the number of persons in the United States who are unable to read and write, although they give the fearful aggregate of five hundred and fifty thousand over twenty years of age who are destitute of these qualifications, it is believed, fail to discover much of gross ignorance that is cherished in various portions of the country; for there is no state in the Union, nor any section of a single state, where men do not wish to be accounted able to read and write. The deputy marshals who took the census received their compensation by the head, and not by the day, for the work done. They therefore traveled from house to house, making the shortest practicable stay at each. More was required of them than could be thoroughly and accurately performed in the time allowed. Their informants were subjected to no test. In the absence of the heads of families, whose information would have been more reliable, the bare word of persons over sixteen years of age was accredited. It is, moreover, well known, that no inconsiderable number of persons gave false information when inquired of by the deputies. From these and other reasons, it is believed that numerous and important errors exist in the census; and this opinion is corroborated by a mass of unquestionable testimony, of which I will introduce a specimen.

The annual message of Governor Campbell, of Virginia, to the Legislature of that state, the year immediately preceding that in which the census was taken, clearly shows that the capacity to read and write in persons over twenty years of age was greatly over-estimated in that state. Governor Campbell, after stating that the importance of an efficient system of education, embracing in its comprehensive and benevolent design the whole people, can not be too frequently recurred to, goes on to remark as follows:

"The statements furnished by the clerks of five city and borough courts, and ninety-three of the county courts, in reply to the inquiries addressed to them, ascertain that, of all those who applied for marriage licenses, a large number were unable to write their names. The years selected for this inquiry were those of 1817, 1827, and 1837. The statements show that the applicants for marriage licenses for 1817 amounted to 4682, of whom 1127 were unable to write; 5048 in 1827, of whom the number unable to write was 1166; and in 1837 the applicants were 4614, and of these the number of 1047 were unable to write their names. From which it appears there still exists a deplorable extent of ignorance, and that, in truth, it is hardly less than it was twenty years ago, when the school fund was created. The statements, it will be remembered, are partial, not embracing quite all the counties, and are, moreover, confined to one sex. The education of females, it is to be feared, is in a condition of much greater neglect.

"There are now in the state two hundred thousand children between the ages of five and fifteen. Forty thousand of them are reported to be poor children, and of them only one half to be attending schools. It may be safely assumed that, of those possessing property adequate to the expenses of a plain education, a large number are growing up in ignorance, for want of schools within convenient distances. Of those at school, many derive little or no instruction, owing to the incapacity of the teachers, as well as to their culpable negligence and inattention. Thus the number likely to remain uneducated, and to grow up without just perceptions of their duties, religious, social, and political, is really of appalling magnitude, and such as to appeal with affecting earnestness to a parental Legislature."

If there shall appear any want of agreement between these statements and the returns made by the deputy marshals, no one need be in doubt in relation to which has the strongest claims for credence. These statements were communicated by the governor of a proud state to the Legislature in his annual message. Unlike the statistics collected by the marshals, each case was subjected to an infallible test; for no man who could make a scrawl in the similitude of his name would submit to the mortification of making his mark, and leaving it on record in a written application for a marriage license. The requisition was made upon the officers of the courts, and the evidence, which was of a documentary or judicial character, is the highest known to the law. The result was, that almost one fourth of all the men applying for marriage licenses—more than thirty-three hundred in three years—were unable to write their names! And Governor Campbell clearly intimates an opinion that "the education of females is in a condition of much greater neglect!"

In round numbers, the free white population of Virginia over twenty years of age is three hundred and thirty thousand. One fourth of this number is eighty-two and a half thousand, which, according to the evidence presented by Governor Campbell, is the lowest possible limit at which the minimum of adults unable to read and write can be stated. But the census number is less than fifty-nine thousand, making a difference of nearly twenty-four thousand, or more than forty per cent.

There are several states of about the same rank as Virginia in the educational scale. Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina sink even below her. The last-named state, with a free white population over twenty years of age of less than 210,000, has the appalling number, even according to the census, of 56,609 who are unable to read and write. In other words, forty-two hundred more than one fourth of the whole free population over twenty years of age are, in the educational scale, absolutely below zero.

Now if to the five hundred and fifty thousand free white population in the United States over the age of twenty years who are unable to read and write, as shown by the census, we add forty per cent. for its under-estimates, as facts require us to do in the case of Virginia, it would increase the total to seven hundred and seventy thousand. Suppose one fourth of these only are voters—that is, deduct one half for females, and allow that one half of the male moiety is made up of persons either between twenty and twenty-one years of age, or of those who are unnaturalized, which is a most liberal allowance when we consider where the great mass of ignorance belongs, and that the number of ignorant immigrants is much less at the South than at the North—and we have 192,500 voters in the United States who are unable to read and write.

Now, at the presidential election for the same year that the census was taken, when, to use the graphic language of another, "every voter not absolutely in his winding sheet was carried to the polls, when the harvest field was so thoroughly swept that neither stubble nor tares were left for the gleaner," the majority for the successful candidate was 146,081, more than 46,000 less than the estimated number of legal voters at that time in the United States unable to read and write. At this election a larger majority of the electoral votes was given for the successful candidate than was ever given to any other President of the United States, with the exception of Mr. Monroe in 1820, against whom there was but one vote. General Harrison's popular majority, also, was undoubtedly the largest by which any President of the United States has ever been elected, with the exception above mentioned of Mr. Monroe, and perhaps that of General Washington at his second election. And yet this majority, large as it was, was more than 46,000 less than the estimated number of our legal voters who, in the educational scale, are absolutely below zero.

And then it should be borne in mind that hundreds of thousands who are barely able to read and write may never have acquired "a knowledge of the true principles of government," which, in the language of Judge Story, at the head of this chapter, "is not only important and useful to Americans, but is absolutely indispensable to carry on the government of their choice, and to transmit it to posterity." It should also be borne in mind that popular virtue is not less essential to the stability of a free government than is general intelligence. Nay, more; if the liberties of this republic are more endangered by any one class of people than by all others, that class consists of intelligent but unprincipled political aspirants. The connection between ignorance and vice has already been referred to, and is well known among intelligent men; but by none so well, it may be, as by the unprincipled aspirant, who, by pandering to the vicious appetites of the ignorant and the vile, and then by base flattery pronouncing them "highly intelligent, enlightened, and civilized," take advantage of their very want of qualification "to manufacture political capital." These are they to whom Lord Brougham refers when he says, "other men will form opinions for them, not according to truth and the interests of the people, but according to their own individual and selfish interest, which may, and most probably will, be contrary to that of the people at large." We can not, then, avoid coming to the unwelcome and dread conclusion that there is not at present in this country a sufficient degree of intelligence and virtue for the wise, or even the safe administration of its affairs. It remains to consider whether existing provisions for the education of our country's youth are adequate to the wants of the American people.

Existing Provisions for Education.—Of the seventeen millions of persons in the United States, according to the last census, 3,726,080—one in five of the entire population—were free white children between the ages of five and fifteen years. This is the lowest estimate I have ever known made of the ages between which children should regularly attend school. The ages usually stated between which children generally should attend school at least ten months during the year, are from four to sixteen, or from four to eighteen years, and sometimes from four to twenty or twenty-one years.

But what is the actual attendance upon the primary and common schools of the country? It is only 1,845,244, or, to vary the expression and give it more definiteness, the total number of children in attendance upon all our schools, any part of the year, is twenty thousand less than one half of the free-born white children in the United States between the ages of five and fifteen years! And then it should be borne in mind that the same general motives which would lead to an under-statement in regard to the number of persons unable to read and write, would lead to an over-statement in regard to the number of those attending school. The educational statistics of some of the states, made out by competent and faithful school officers, show that the whole number of scholars that attended school any part of the time during the school year 1840-41—the year the census was taken—was several thousand less than the number according to the census.[60]

If we were to embrace in the estimate the whole number of students in attendance at the universities, colleges, academies, and seminaries of learning of every grade, it would not materially vary the result, for all these taken together are less than one tenth part of the number in attendance upon the common schools. That the number of children attending schools of any grade is less than might be inferred from the foregoing statements, will be apparent when we consider the following facts.

In the United States, taken together as a whole, only one person in ten of the population attends any school whatever any part of the year. Now it is well known that a large number of children under five years of age attend school in many parts of the country, and a much greater number that are over fifteen years of age. I have already said that the entire number of children in attendance upon all our schools is twenty thousand less than one half of the entire number of free-born white children in the United States between the ages of five and fifteen years. This leaves two millions of children uninstructed. We shall have a more just view of the scantiness of our provisions for adequate national education if to this number, appalling as it is, we add the total number of those attending under five and over fifteen in various portions of the country.

Again: no one supposes that in any part of the Union adequate provisions are made for the education of the rising generation, even in a single state. But in the New England states, and in New York and Michigan, one fourth part of the entire population attend school some part of the year. This is twice and a half the general average throughout the Union, and more than five times the average attendance in the majority of the remaining states.

In round numbers, the proportion of the entire population that attend school in the different states of the Union is, according to the census, in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, each, one in three. In Michigan,[61] Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, the proportion is one in four. In Rhode Island, it is one in five. In Ohio and New Jersey, each, one in six. In Pennsylvania, one in eight. In no other state is the proportion more than one in ten, while in ten states it is less than one in twenty-five.

In fixing this proportion, the nearest whole number has been used. In no state is the proportion in attendance upon the schools as high as one in three. Michigan heads the states in which the proportion is one in four. In this state the proportion is somewhat greater than one in four; it is, however, nearer this than one in three. In the other states the proportion is less than one in four. The states are all arranged according to the size of the fraction, there being less difference in the attendance in Vermont and Michigan than in the latter state and New York.

At the time the last census was taken, Michigan had recently been admitted into the Union, and the state government being but just organized, the school system had only gone partially into operation. According to the census of 1840, the proportion in attendance upon the schools of this state was only one in seven. During the interval from 1840 to 1845, at which time the census of this state was again taken, the population had increased from two hundred and twelve thousand to upward of three hundred thousand, showing an increase of about fifty per cent.; the number of primary schools had increased from less than ten thousand to more than twenty thousand, making an increase of more than one hundred per cent.; and the attendance upon these schools had advanced from thirty thousand to seventy-six thousand, giving the very remarkable increase of one hundred and fifty per cent. in five years, when, as already stated, the proportion in attendance upon the common schools was more than one in four of the entire population. And during the next two years the number of children in attendance upon the schools increased from seventy-six thousand to one hundred and eight thousand, showing an advance of more than forty per cent. from 1845 to 1847.

It is gratifying to know that this important interest, which underlies all others, is receiving increased attention in various portions of the United States. Among the most striking illustrations that I have noticed of these indications of national improvement, I will instance two.[62] The following interesting items of fact are gleaned from an address by the superintendent before the public schools of New Orleans, February 22d, 1850—a most befitting day for a school celebration. These statistics strike us more forcibly when we consider that they relate to the metropolis of the South, and to the capital of a state in which, according to the last census, only one person in one hundred received instruction in the primary and common schools of the state. The public schools of the second municipality of New Orleans were established in 1842, comprising at that time less than three hundred pupils. Now the constant attendance is upward of three thousand—ten times what it was eight years ago. But even this increase, large as it may seem, is not sufficient to constitute the proportion in attendance upon the schools of the state even one in fifty of the entire population.

Kentucky furnishes the other indication of improvement which I propose to notice. In this state, according to the last census, only one in thirty-three of the entire population attended the common schools during any part of the year. The number of children at the present time in that commonwealth, as reported by the second auditor, between the ages of five and sixteen, leaving out the colored children, is one hundred and ninety-three thousand. The number provided with schools, as reported in 1847, was twenty-one thousand; in 1848, thirty-three thousand; and in 1849, eighty-seven thousand; showing a clear advance in two years of sixty-six thousand.[63] But, with all this improvement, one hundred and five thousand children do not derive any personal benefit from the public school system. In other words, eighteen thousand more children in this state are still growing up without instruction than as yet attend the schools. And the utter inadequacy of the common school privileges of even these will be apparent when it is understood that in the great majority of the districts more than nine tenths of the schools are taught but three months during the year.

We have as yet only considered the great destitution of schools of any kind, in which the moiety of the children that attend school at all receive instruction, and the fact that very many of these are kept open but three months during the year.[64] The inadequacy of existing provisions for the proper education of the rising generation will be more strikingly apparent when we consider the incompetency of, I may perhaps safely say, the majority of persons who are put in charge of the public schools of the country. It is readily conceded that, in those states where education has received most attention, there are many teachers who are thoroughly furnished unto all good works. But it is far otherwise with the majority of teachers even in the more favored states. The testimony of Governor Campbell already quoted, will apply to the teachers of many other states. After speaking of the large number of children in Virginia that "are growing up in ignorance for want of schools within convenient distances," he remarks, that "of those at school, many derive little or no instruction, owing to the incapacity of the teachers, as well as to their culpable negligence and inattention."

President Caldwell, of the University of North Carolina, in a series of letters on popular education, addressed to the people of that state a few years ago, proposes a plan for the improvement of common education. The first and greatest existing evil which he specifies is the want of qualified teachers. Any one who "knows how to read, and write, and cipher," it is said, is regarded as fit to be a "schoolmaster."

"Is a man," remarks President Caldwell, "constitutionally and habitually indolent, a burden upon all from whom he can extract a support? Then there is one way of shaking him off; let us make him a schoolmaster! To teach a school is, in the opinion of many, little else than sitting still and doing nothing. Has any man wasted all his property, or ended in debt by indiscretion and misconduct? The business of school-keeping stands wide open for his reception; and here he sinks to the bottom, for want of capacity to support himself. Has any one ruined himself, and done all he could to corrupt others by dissipation, drinking, seduction, and a course of irregularities? Nay, has he returned from a prison, after an ignominious atonement for some violation of the laws? He is destitute of character, and can not be trusted; but presently he opens a school, and the children are seen flocking to it; for, if he is willing to act in that capacity—we shall all admit that he can read, write, and cipher to the square root—he will make an excellent schoolmaster. In short, it is no matter what the man is, or what his manners or principles; if he has escaped with his life from the penal code, we have the satisfaction to think that he can still have credit as a schoolmaster."

The Georgia convention of teachers, in a published address, after speaking of the importance of giving a more extended education to our youth as citizens, and giving an outline of a liberal system of popular education, go on to remark as follows: "Alas! how far should we be elevated above our present level if all of them were thus enlightened! But how many sons and daughters of free-born Americans are unable to read their native language! How many go to the polls who are unable to read the very charter of their liberties! How many, by their votes, elect men to legislate upon their dearest interests, while they themselves are unable to read even the proceedings of those legislators whom they have empowered to act for them!"

In accounting for this lamentable state of things, the committee of the Convention say, "We seem to forget that first principles are, in education, all-important principles; that primary schools are the places where these principles are to be established, and where such direction will, in all probability, be given to the minds of our children as will decide their future character in life. Hence the idle, and the profane, and the drunken, and the ignorant are employed to impart to our children the first elements of knowledge—are set before them as examples of what literature and science can accomplish! And hence the profession of schoolmaster, which should be the most honorable, is but too often a term of reproach."

That other most unwelcome and dread conclusion, that existing provisions for popular education in the United Slates are inadequate to the requirements of a free people, is, then, in view of all these facts, unavoidably forced upon us.

In the name of Christian philanthropy, in the name of patriotism, then, I inquire whether there is any ground for hope that our free institutions may be transmitted unimpaired to posterity. "With the heroes, and sages, and martyrs of the Revolution," to adopt the language of another, "I believe in the capability of man for self-government, my whole soul thereto most joyously assenting. Nay, if there be any heresy among men, or blasphemy against God, at which the philosopher might be allowed to forget his equanimity, and the Christian his charity, it is the heresy and the blasphemy of believing and avowing that the infinitely good and all-wise Author of the universe persists in creating and sustaining a race of beings who, by a law of their nature, are forever doomed to suffer all the atrocities and agonies of misgovernment, either from the hands of others or from their own. The doctrine of the inherent and necessary disability of mankind for self-government should be regarded not simply with denial, but with abhorrence; not with disproof only, but with execration. To sweep so foul a creed from the precincts of truth, and utterly to consume it, rhetoric should become a whirlwind, and logic fire. Indeed, I have never known a man who desired the establishment of monarchical and aristocratical institutions among us, who had not a mental reservation that, in such case, he and his family should belong to the privileged orders.

"Still, if asked the broad question whether man is capable of self-government, I must answer it conditionally. If by man, in the inquiry, is meant the Fejee Islanders; or the convicts at Botany Bay; or the people of Mexico and of some of the South American Republics, so called; or those as a class, in our own country, who can neither read nor write; or those who can read and write, and who possess talents and an education by force of which they get treasury, or post-office, or bank appointments, and then abscond with all the money they can steal, I answer unhesitatingly that man, or rather such men, are not fit for self-government.

"But if, on the other hand, the inquiry be whether mankind are not endowed with those germs of intelligence and those susceptibilities of goodness by which, under a perfectly practicable system of cultivation and training, they are able to avoid the evils of despotism and anarchy, and also of those frequent changes in national policy which are but one remove from anarchy, and to hold steadfastly on their way in an endless career of improvement, then, in the full rapture of that joy and triumph which springs from a belief in the goodness of God and the progressive happiness of man, I answer, they are able."

---

The desirableness of national or universal education is now generally admitted in all enlightened communities; but there are some who, honestly no doubt, question its practicability. If they provide for the education of their own children, they claim that they have done all that duty or interest requires them to do. They even aver that there is absolute injustice in compelling them to contribute toward the education of the children of others. Now these very persons, when called upon annually by the tax-gatherer to contribute their proportion for the support of paupers—made so by idleness, intemperance, and other vices, which, as we have already seen, result from ignorance—do so cheerfully and ungrudgingly, and without complaining that they support themselves and their families, and that neither duty nor interest requires them to aid in the maintenance of indigent persons in the community.

The Poor Laws of our country, in the case of adults who are unable to support themselves, require merely their maintenance. But with reference to their children, more, from the very nature of the case, is needed. Their situation imperatively demands not only a sustenance, but an education that shall enable them in future years to provide for themselves. The same humane reasons which lead civilized communities to provide for the maintenance of indigent adults by legal enactments, bear even more strongly in the case of their children. These require sustenance in common with their parents. But their wants, their necessities, stop not here; neither does the well-being of society with reference to them. Both alike require that such children, in common with all others, be so trained as to be enabled not only to provide for themselves when they arrive at mature years, but as shall be necessary to qualify them for the discharge of the duties of citizenship. Then, instead of taxing society for a support, as their parents now do, they will contribute to the elevation of all around, even more largely than society has contributed to their elevation.

Let the necessary provision be made for the education of the children of the poor, in common with all others, and successive generations of the sons of men will steadily progress in knowledge and virtue, and in all that has a tendency to elevate and ennoble human kind. But let their education be neglected, and their rank in society will of necessity be lower, when compared with the better educated and more favored classes, than it would have been only two or three centuries ago, even since the invention of the art of printing in 1440. The reasons are evident. Until after the invention of printing and the multiplication of books, all ranks were, in relation to education, nearly upon a level. But, in the language of the adage, "Knowledge is power;" and, since "knowledge has been increased," those who possess it are elevated, relatively and absolutely, while those who remain in the ignorance of former generations, although their absolute condition in the scale of being is unchanged, occupy, nevertheless, relatively, a lower place in society than they would have done had they lived in the midst of the Dark Ages.

Wherever improved free schools have been maintained, not only are the children of the poor in attendance upon them elevated in the scale of intellectual, social, and moral being, but, through their irresistible influence, their degraded and besotted parents have been reformed and become law-abiding subjects, when all other means had failed to reach and influence them. Of the truth of this statement I am well persuaded from my own observation. I have also in my possession an abundance of unquestionable testimony to this effect, gathered in cities, towns, and villages which have become celebrated for the maintenance of a high order of public schools. The public, then, on many accounts, are more interested in the right education of poor children than in the preservation of their lives! The latter is carefully provided for. But if this only is done; if their bodies are fed and clothed, without providing for the sustenance of their minds; if we provide for their wants as helpless young animals merely, but neglect to provide for their necessities as spiritual and immortal beings, the probabilities are that such children will become a pest to society, while, in providing for their proper education, we are sure of making them good citizens, of constituting them a blessing to the world that now is, and of brightening their prospects for a blessed immortality in that which is to come.

Bishop Butler, in a sermon preached in Christ Church, London, on charity schools, May 9th, 1745, recognizes the principle that the property of the state should educate the children of the state. "Formerly," says he, "not only the education of poor children, but also their maintenance, with that of the other poor, were left to voluntary charities. But great changes of different sorts happening over the nation, and charity becoming more cold, or the poor more numerous, it was found necessary to make some legal provision for them. This might, much more properly than charity schools, be called a new scheme;[65] for, without question, the education of poor children was all along taken care of by voluntary charities, more or less, but obliging us by law to maintain the poor was new in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Yet, because a change of circumstances made it necessary, its novelty was no reason against it. Now, in that legal provision for the maintenance of the poor, poor children must doubtless have had a part in common with grown people. But this could never be sufficient for children, because their case always requires more than mere maintenance; it requires that they be educated in some proper manner. Wherever there are poor who want to be maintained by charity, there must be poor children, who, besides this, want to be educated by charity; and whenever there began to be need of legal provision for the maintenance of the poor, there must immediately have been need also of some particular legal provision in behalf of poor children for their education, this not being included in what we call their maintenance."

Not only is it the duty of society to provide food for the minds as well as sustenance for the bodies of poor children, but their pecuniary interests equally require it; for, as Butler remarks, "if they are not trained up in the way they should go, they will certainly be trained up in the way they should not go, and in all probability will persevere in it, and become miserable themselves and mischievous to society, which, in event, is worse, upon account of both, than if they had been exposed to perish in their infancy."

I have already shown, by unquestionable testimony, that persons who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly goods are deeply interested in the subject of popular education, as one of mere insurance; "that the most effectual way of making insurance upon their property would be to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and constituting it a police more effective than peace officers or prisons." I might elucidate this subject by illustrations.

It has been estimated that a quarter of a million of dollars has been expended in the county of Philadelphia since 1836 for the suppression of riots occurring within its limits, and in damages occasioned by their outrages and violence, to say nothing of personal injuries and deaths arising from the same cause. Now it will be readily conceded by most persons that half of this sum judiciously expended in organizing and supporting a sufficient police, and in giving the leaders and gangs engaged in those riots an early and suitable education, whereby they would have been taught to think, and feel, and act as rational, moral, and accountable beings, would have prevented the commission of such crimes, together with the sufferings and losses resulting therefrom, and the reproach thus brought upon public and individual character.

Again: The whole number of paupers relieved or supported by public charity in the single state of New York, in the year 1849, according to an authentic statement now before me, was, in round numbers, one hundred thousand, and the entire expense of their support during the year was eight hundred and seven thousand dollars, a sum exceeding by three hundred and forty thousand dollars the amount paid on rate-bills for teacher's wages for educating the seven hundred thousand children of that great state! Of fifty thousand of these paupers, the causes of whose destitution have been ascertained, nearly twenty thousand are attributable, directly or indirectly, to intemperance, profligacy, licentiousness, and crime! Had even half the amount that is now expended from year to year in their support been judiciously bestowed upon their early mental and moral culture, who can question that, instead of now being a tax upon the communities in which they reside, and a burden to themselves and a grief to their friends, they would not only have provided for their own maintenance, but would have contributed their due proportion to increase the general prosperity of the state.

Great as is her poor-tax, New York contributes annually an immensely greater sum for the support of her criminal police; for the erection of court-houses, and jails, and penitentiaries, and houses of correction; for the arrest, trial, conviction, and punishment of criminals, and for their support in prison and at the various landing-places on their way to the gallows and to a premature and ignominious death. Now, had one half of the money which this state has expended in these two ways been judiciously bestowed in the early education of these unfortunate persons, who can question that the poor and criminal taxes of that state would have been reduced to less than one tenth of what they now are, to say nothing of the fountains of tears that would be thus dried up, and of the untold happiness that would be enjoyed by persons who, in every generation, lead cheerless lives and die ignoble deaths.

Lest some persons may labor under an erroneous impression in relation to this subject, I will give the statistics of education and crime in New York, as derived from official reports, for the last few years. Of 1122 persons—the whole number reported by the sheriffs of the different counties of the state as under conviction and punishment for crime during the year 1847—22 only had a common education, 10 only had a tolerably good education, and only 6 were well educated. Of the 1345 criminals so returned in the several counties of the state for the year 1848, 23 only had a common school education, 13 only had a tolerably good education, and only 10 were considered well educated! The returns for other years give like results. Had the whole eleven or thirteen hundred of these convicts been well educated instead of only six or ten—and the moral and religious education of even these was defective—how many of them would society be called upon to support in prisons and penitentiaries? In all probability, as we shall hereafter, I hope, be able to show, not one. And what is true of the city and county of Philadelphia and of the State of New York, will apply to other cities, counties, and states of this Union.

Once more, and finally: Education, as we have already seen, enables men to subdue their passions, and to improve themselves in the exercise of all the social virtues. Especially have we seen that the educated portions of community, whose moral culture has been duly attended to, are habitually temperate, while the appetite of the uncultivated for intoxicating drinks is stronger, and their power of resistance less. Cut off from the sources of enjoyment which are ever open to those whose minds and hearts are cultivated, no wonder they seek for happiness in the gratification of appetite! No wonder that forty thousand of the citizens of the United States annually die drunkards, when we consider that this is only one in twenty of the number who are unable to read and write!

The Hon. Edward Everett has expressed the opinion that the expenses of the manufacture and traffic of intoxicating drinks in the United States exceed annually one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. General Cary, in alluding to this statement, says, "This, it is believed, is but an approximation to the cost of these trades to the people. This estimate does not include the money paid by consumers, which is worse than thrown away. An English writer, well versed in statistics, and having access to the most reliable sources of information, says that 'the strong drinks consumed in England alone cost nearly four hundred millions of dollars annually.' The expenditure for these sources of all evil in the United States must be equal, at least, to that of England."[66] Now one half of this sum would maintain a system of common schools in every state of this Union equal in expense and efficiency to that of Massachusetts or New York.

But I need not extend these observations. Enough, I trust, has been said to show that every thing connected with the good of man and the welfare of the race depends upon the attention we bestow in perfecting our systems of public instruction and rendering their blessings universal. I will therefore close what I have to say upon this topic with a summary of the conclusions we have arrived at in the progress of the last two chapters.

We have seen that a good system of common school education—one that is sufficiently comprehensive to embrace all our country's youth in its benevolent design—would free us as a people from a host of evils growing out of popular ignorance; that it would increase the productiveness of labor, as the schools advance in excellence, indefinitely; that it would save to society, in diminishing the number of paupers and criminals, a vast amount of means absorbed in the support of the former, and in bringing the latter to justice, a tax which upon every present generation is more than sufficient for the education of the next succeeding one; that it would prevent the great majority of fatal accidents that are now depopulating communities wherever ignorance prevails; that, by imparting a knowledge of the organic laws, the observance of which is essential to health and happiness, it would save the lives of a hundred thousand children in the United States every year, and that by promoting longevity, in connection with the advantages already enumerated, it would tend more than all other means of state policy to increase at once the wealth and the population of our country; that its legitimate tendency would be to diminish, from generation to generation, not only drunkenness and sensuality in all its Protean forms, but idiocy and insanity, which result from a violation of the laws of our being, which are the laws of God; that it would, in innumerable ways, tend to diminish the sufferings and mitigate the woes incident to human life, while it would acquaint man with the will of the benevolent Creator, and lead him to cherish an habitual desire to yield obedience thereto; and that it is the only possible means of perfecting and perpetuating the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty to the latest generations, and thus securing to the race the maximum of human happiness. Yes, a system of popular education adequate to the requirements of the states of this Union will do all this. None, then, it would seem, can fail to see that true state policy requires the maintenance of improved free schools, good enough for the best, and cheap enough for the poorest, which are a necessary means of universal education.

---