Popular Education

ue man from that state of degradation to which he is doomed unless redeemed by education; to unfold his physical, intellectual, and moral powers, and to fit

bitant of a civilized country would be a brief but impressive representation of th

ct at this time is, if possible, to remove from the mind any remaining doubts in relation to it. The reader will bear in mind that we regard education as having reference to the whole man-the body, the mind, and the heart; and that its o

e educated by circumstances. Let it be borne in mind, then, that all the children in every community will be educated somewhere and somehow; and that it devolves upon citizens and paren

and, surveying it attentively, remarked to those at work upon it as follows: "You have here another long building going up rapidly; and," he added, "is this the place where our children are to be educated?" Such keen and well-merited rebuke rarely falls from human lips. Those two bowling-alleys, with their bars-indispensable appendages-were thronged from six o'clock in the morning until past midnight, six days in the week. They were, moreover, the very places where many of the youth of that village were receiving their e

race, but also the most adroit manner of defending himself and destroying his enemy. But we use the term in a higher, broader, and more capacious sense, as having reference to the whole man, and the

IPATES THE EVI

as depicted by modern voyagers and travelers, we should find abundant illustration of the truth of this remark. We should find, in almost every instance, that ignorance of the character of the true God, and f

hich there is the most immorality, and the greatest indifference to the sufferings of animated and sentient beings. Spain-in which, until recently, there was but one newspaper printed, and in which only about one in thirty five of the people are instructed in schools-has a population about equal to that of England and Wales. Popular education in the latter countries, although much behind several of the other European states, is still greatly in advance of what it is in Spain, and there is an equally marked difference in the state of morals in the people of these countries. In England and Wales the whole number of convictions

be the bull or man who is in danger, their joy is excessive; but their greatest sympathy is given to the feats of the bull! If the picador receives the bull gallantly and forces him to retreat, or if the matadore courageously faces and wounds the bull, they applaud these acts of science and valor; but if the bull overthrow the horse and his rider, or if the matadore miss his aim and the bull seems ready to gore him, their delight knows no bounds. And it is certainly a fine spectacle to see thousands of spectators rise simultaneously, as they always do when the int

and six horses. When the last bull was dispatched, the people immediately rushed into the arena,

ate picador was killed, in place of a general exclamation of horror and loud expressions of pity, the universal cry was 'Que es bravo ese toro! ('Ah, the admirable bull!') The whole scene produced the most unbounded delight; t

m. It acquaints them with their duty, and enables them to find their highest pleasure in its discharge. They order their pursuits and choose their employments with reference to their own advantage, it is true; but still, a higher, and the controlling motive with them is, the promotion of the best good of the

less favored, are denied to multitudes. Individuals who have had no early advantages for learning, who have never even entered a school-house, but have grown up amid a generally intelligent population, trained by the institutions established by our fathers, have in many instances acquired a mental character and influence which, but for these fortuitous circumstances, they could not have attained. The very excellence of our systems

en, unreached by the elevating influence of the educated, acting under the unchastened stimulus of the passions, and excited by the various causes of discontent which are constantly occurring in the progress of human affairs, is not unfrequently productive of scenes, the contemplation of

s, when they forcibly entered the houses of the land-owners, every where found chloride of lime, which they took for the poisonous powder, confirmed their suspicions, and drove the people to madness. In this state of excitement, they committed the most appalling excesses. Thus, for instance, when a detachment of thirty soldiers, headed by an ensign, attempted to restore order in Klucknow, the peasants, who were ten times their number, fell upon them; the soldiers were released, but the ensign was bound, tortured with scissors and knives, then beheaded, and his head fixed on a pike as a trophy. A civil officer in company with the military was drowned, his carriage broken, and, chloride of lime being found in the carriage, one of the inmates was compelled to eat it till he vomited blood, which again confirmed the notion of poison. On the attack of the house of the lord at Klucknow, the countess saved her life by piteous entreaties: but the chief bailiff, in whose house chloride of lime was unhappily found, was killed, together with his so

is essential to health at all times, and that during the prevalence of a malignant epidemic it is doubly needful. They would have known, also, that chloride of lime is not a medicine to be taken

un or of the moon was regarded with the utmost consternation, as if some unusual catastrophe had been about to befall the universe. Believing that the moon in an eclipse was sickening or dying, through the influence of enchanters, the trembling spectators had recourse to the ringing

ehensions, whole provinces having been thrown into consternation by the fantastic coruscations of these lambent meteors. Some pretend to see in these harmless lights armies mixing in fierce encounter and fields streaming with blood, while others behold states overthrown, earthq

he professors of this fallacious science. Such impositions on the credulity of mankind are founded on the grossest absurdity and the most palpable ignorance of the nature of things; still, in the midst of the light of science which the present century has shed upon the world, the astrologer meets with a rich support[32] even in the metropolis of Great Britain; and soothsayers, if not astrologers, get great gain by their

exhibition covered no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface. The first appearance was every where that of fire-works of the most imposing grandeur, covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads of fire-balls resembling sky-rockets; but the most brilliant sky-rockets and fire-works of art bear less relation to the splendors of this celestial exhibition than the twinkling of the most tiny star to the broad glare

upon my ears. Shrieks of horror and cries of mercy I could hear from most of the negroes of three plantations, amounting in all to about six or eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name: I arose, and, taking my sword, stood at the door. At this moment I heard the same voice still beseeching me to rise and saying, 'O! my God, the world is on fire!' I then opened the door, and

he plaintive note of the mourning dove, the ticking noise of the little insect called the death-watch, the howling of a dog in the night-time, the meeting of a bitch with whelps, or a snake lying in the road, the breaking of a looking-glass, and even the falling

minous of disastrous events. On the evening before new year's day, if a black cloud appeared in any part of the horizon, it was thought to prognosticate a plague, a famine, or the death of some great man in that part of the country over which it seemed to hang; and in order to ascertain

w pursuit of any kind, or even beginning to plant or plow on Friday, the unlucky day of the Americans. How many persons have had misfortunes attend them all their lives because they were born, or christened, or married on Friday! How many houses have been burned because they were begu

ease, the family will from that time decline in its circumstances and sink into poverty. In this country, equally unfounded and ridiculous opinions are entertained. Passing by the more commonly received opinions that if swine are killed in the old of the moon, the pork will shrink in the pot; that seed sown at this time will be less likely to do well, etc., etc., I will mention one or two instances of opinions which, although equally well founded, are less

ount of the groundless alarms they create, but chiefly on account of the false ideas they inspire with regard to the nature of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and of his arrangements in the government of the world. He whose mind is enlightened with true science perceives throughout all nature the most striking evidences of benevolent design, and rejoices in the benignity of the Great Parent of the universe, discovering nothing in the arrangements of the Creator, in any department of his works, which has a direct tendency to produce pain to any intelligent or sensitive being. The superstitious man, on the contrary, contemplates the sky, the air, the waters, and the earth as filled with malicious beings, ever ready to haunt him w

eans be persuaded of the motion of the earth, and the distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies, should swallow, without the least hesitation, opinions ten thousand times more improbable. Notwithstanding the mathematical certainty of the truth of the Copernican system of astronomy, I have never yet become extensively acquainted with any community in which I have not found many persons professing a respectable degree of intelligence, and even official members of orthodox churches, who entirely discredit its sub

Nor are the annals of Great Britain and the United States deficient in examples of this kind. About the commencement of the last century, the belief in witchcraft, which was almost universal throughout Christendom, was held in both of these countries. The laws of England, which admitted its existence and punished it with death, were adopted by the Puritans of New England, and in less than twenty years from the founding of the colony, one individual was tried and executed for the supposed crime. Half a century later the delusion broke out in Salem. A minister, whose daughter and niece were subject to convulsions accompanied by extraordinary symptoms, supposing they were bewitched,

eneral society. This duty is especially incumbent upon parents and teachers, and can be effected only by rendering correct early education universal. Ignorance of the laws and economy of nature is the one great source of these absurd opinions. They have not only no foun

s, the mind must be directed to the study of the material universe, to contemplate the various appearances it presents, and to mark well the uniform results of those invariable laws by which it is governed. In particular, the attention should be directed to those discoveries which have been made by philosophers in the different departments of nature and art during the last two centuries. For this purpose, the study of natural history, as recording the various facts respecting the atmosphere, the waters, the earth, and animated beings, combined with the study of natural p

epend on the new or full moon happening at or near the points of intersection of the orbits of the earth and moon, and that other planets which have moons experience eclipses of a similar nature. Let them also be taught that the comets are regular bodies belonging to our system, which finish their revolutions and appear and disappear in stated periods of time; that the northern lights, though seldom seen in southern climes, are frequent in the regions of t

uillity and composure. A more beneficial effect than this will at the same time be produced, for those very objects which w

age of a cow or a horse into a terrific phantom of a monstrous size. Let them also be taught, by a selection of well-authenticated facts, the powerful influence of the imagination in creating ideal forms, especially when under the dominion of fear; the effects produced by the workings of conscience when harassed by guilt; let them be taught the effects produced by lively dreams, by strong doses of opium, by drunkenness, hysteric passions, madness, and other disorders that affect t

at a comet, at an ignis fatuus, or at the notes of a death-watch? or who postpones his experiments on account of what is called an unlucky day? Who ever heard of a specter appearing to such a person, dragging him from bed at the dead hour of midnight, to wander through the forest, trembling with fear? Such beings appear only to the ignorant and illiterate, at least to those who are unacquainted with natural science, and we never hear of their appearing to any who did not previously believe in their existence. But should philosophers be freed from such terrific visions, if substantial kn

rica. His publishers justly remark, that "probably no public lecturer ever continued, for the same length of time, to collect around him so numerous audiences." The author himself states, in the preface to his Lectures,[35] that from November, 1841, when he commenced his public lectures in the lecture-room of Clinton Hall, in New York, to the close of the year 1844, when he c

nced on the part of the audience, and the most unremitting and silent attention was given. These assemblies consisted of persons of both sexes, of every age, from the elder classes of pupils in the schools to their grandfathers and grandmothers. Frequently the audiences amounted to twelve hundred, and sometimes, as at the Philadelphia Museum, they exceeded two thousand. Nor was the manifestation of this interest confined, as might be imagined, to the northern Atlantic cities, where education is known to be at

more material pursuits of life. The less pretension to eloquence and the attractive graces of oratory the lecturer can offer, the more surprising is the result, and the more creditable to the intelligence of the American peopl

themselves contain paragraphs which show that the popular mind even in our own cou

her words, the relative position of the moon and sun in regard to the earth, is the cause of these changes. Now these and kindred opinions are very extensively held in this country. But the doctor refers to meteorological tables, constructed in various countries after the most extensive and careful observation, and

has been stated, it follows then, conclusively, that the popular notions concerning the influence of the l

country interdict the cutting of timber during the increase of the moon. In the extensive forests of Germany, the same opinion is entertained and acted upon, with the most undoubting confidence in its truth. Sauer, a superintendent of some of these districts, assigns what he believes to be its physical cause. According to him, the increase of the moon causes the sap to ascend in the timber, and, on the other hand, the decrease of the moon

made, and the ascent not yet commenced. But can there be imagined, in the whole range of natural science, a physical relation more extraordinary and unaccountable than this supposed correspondence between the movement of the sap and the phase

l felled a great many trees of the same age, growing from the same soil, and exposed to the same aspect, and never found any difference in the quality of the timber, when he compared those which were felled in the decline of the moon with those which were felled during its i

flourish and grow with vigor, should be planted, grafted, and pruned during the increase of the moon. This opinion, however, he thinks is altogether erroneous; for the experiments an

od, and that, on the contrary, they plant during the increasing moon the sugar-cane, maize, rice, beans, etc., and those which bear the food upon their stocks and branches. Experiments, however, w

one in the European aphorisms. The directions of Pliny are still more specific: he prescribes the time of the full moon for sowing beans, and that of the new moon for lentils. "Truly," says M. Arago, "we have need of a robust faith to admit, without

on wine-making,[38] on the color of the complexion, on putrefaction, on the size of shell-fish, on the quantity of

ng to the intervals between the moon's principal phases. While the doctrine of alchemists prevailed, the human body was considered as a microcosm, or an epitome of the universe, the heart representing the sun, and the brain the moon. The planets had each his proper influence: Jupiter presided over the lungs, Saturn over the spleen, Venus over the kidneys, and Mercury over the organs of generation. The term lunacy, which still designates unsoundness of mind, is a rel

gained two pounds' weight at the beginning of every lunar month, which he lost toward its completion. This opinion appears to

pting and debasing absurdities which have hitherto enslaved it, we are indebted to our enlightened and chastened syste

SES THE PRODUCTI

spontaneity of production, mineral resources, or mines of silver and gold. Every wise parent, every wise community, desiring the

re always the best

or communities. We have already seen that education, and that alone, will dissipate the evils of ignorance. W

e with his labor. A single yoke of oxen will do more in one day at plowing than forty men; yet the oxen may be had for fifty cents a day, while each of the men can earn a dollar. Physical exertion in this case, combined wi

han the same amount of brute force; but the services of an intelligent, skillful person are a hundred fold more productive. I will pause and illustrate, for I wish to have every person who arises from the perusal of these pages do so with the fullest conviction that m

-informed and more expert neighbor had got through with his, and then, borrowing it, tried the experiment with his own team. Early one morning, and full of expectation, aided by his two sons and a hired man, he harnessed his three horses to the plow. But one of them, for the first time, refused to draw. After several fruitless attempts to make the team work as first harnessed, the relative position of the horses was changed, when, lo! although this horse would draw as formerly, one of the others would not. By and by another change was ma

re intelligent farmer. "Why, one at the short end, and two at the long en

them. The fickleness of the horses, then, instead of being the result of witchcraft, as he was inclined to believe, was chargeable solely to the ignorance of their hardly more intelligent master. A knowledge of the first principles of mechanics, or,

day, as the neighbor was passing the residence of the gentleman, the latter remarked to him, "You have one very fine-looking ox." "Yes," replied the neighbor, with apparent satisfaction, "and a bonny fellow he is too. He can carr

l capacity. The correctness of this statement may be satisfactorily proved and amply illustrated in loading timber, in moving buildings, in plowing, and in almost every kind of work done on a farm or among men, either on land or at sea. The ignorant man will spend more time in running after help to do a supposed diffic

pon its foundation, to range properly with other buildings. While the mechanics went in several directions to procure what they regarded as necessary help, the teache

arry upon their shoulders by land, which is barely capable of plying upon our rivers and coasting our inland seas, and which can be propelled only by human muscles, but the educated man erects a magnificent vessel, a floating palace, and, spreading his canvas to the breeze, aided by the mariner's compass, can traverse unknown seas in safety. To such perfection ha

ies to hold personal interviews with many of the most practical, sagacious, and intelligent business men in our country, who for many years had had large numbers of persons in their employment. His object was to ascertain the difference in the productive ability, where natural capacities were equal, between the educated and the uneducated; between a man or a woman whose mind has been awakened to thought, and supplied with the rudiments of knowledge by a good

e will rarely have any exact data or tests to refer to by which he can measure the superiority of the former over the latter. They do not work side by side, so that he can institute a comparison between the amounts of labor they perform. They may cultivate different f

ng a precise estimate of the relative value of any two men's handicraft. Individual differences, too, in regard to a single article or a single days' work, may be too minute to be noticed or appreciated, while the aggregate of these differences at the end of a few years may make all the difference between a poor man and a rich one. No observing man can

the same number of hours each day; and when, also, the products of each operative can be counted in number, weighed by the pound, or measured by the yard or cubic foot, th

nd of course requiring different degrees of intelligence and skill, it is easy t

f society do not intrude. The capitalist and his agents are looking for the greatest amount of labor or the largest income in money from their investments, and they do not promote a dunce to a station where he will destroy raw material or slacken industr

have been exercised in early life furnish their assistance. Individuals who, without the aid of knowledge, would have been condemned to perpetual inferiority of condition, and subjected to all the evils of want and poverty, rise to competence and independence by the uplifting power of education. In great establishments, and among large bodies of laboring men, where all services are rated according to their pecuniary value; where there are no extrinsic circumstances to bind a man down to a fixed position after he has shown a capacity to rise

diate contact with the operatives, expresses the conviction that the rudiments of a common school education are essential to the attainment of skill and expertness as laborers, or to consideration and respect in the civil and social relations of life; that very few who have not enjoyed the advantages of a common school education ever rise above the lowest class of operatives, and that the labor of this class, when it is employed in manufacturing operations which require even a very

he others. The average number of operatives employed for the last three years is twelve hundred. Of this number there are forty-five unable to write their names, or about three and three fourths per cent. The avera

es of an equal number of the better-educated class is about twenty-seven per cent. in favor of the latter. The difference between the wages earned by twenty-nine of the lowest class and the sam

could read or write; and although a part of them had been accustomed to work in cotton-mills, yet, either from incapacity or idleness, they were unable t

degree of skill are as well educated as our people in similar situations. But the common laborers, as a class, are without any education, and their

responsible situations come from this class of workmen. From these statements the reader will be able to form some estimate, in dollars and cents, at least, of the advantages of even a little education to the operative; and there is not the least doubt, says the same authority, that the employer is equally benefited. He has the security

atives mentioned in this statement, it will be seen that the cost will be increased in a compound ratio. Mr. Mills expresses the opinion "that the best cotton-mill in New England, with such operatives only as the forty-five mentioned above, who are unable to write their names, would never yield the proprietor a profit; that the machinery would be soon worn out, and he would be left, in a short time, with a population no better than that which is represented by the importation from England. I can not imagine any situation in life," he continue

d applied to production in the mechanic and manufacturing arts possessing different degrees of intelligence, from gross ignorance to a high degree of cultivation, and he has no hesitation in affirming that he finds the best educated to be the most profitable help. E

re orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations of an establishment. And in times of agitation, on account of some change in regulations or wages, I have always looked to the most intelligent, best educated, and the most moral for support, and have seldom been disappointed;

ith fewer of 'the ills flesh is heir to.' In short, I have found the educated, as a class, more cheerful and contented, devoting a portion of their leisure time to reading and intellectual pursuits, more with their families, and less in scenes of dissipation. The good effect of all this is seen in the more orderly and comfortable appearance of the whole ho

in making promotions, as a general thing, it would be unnecessary to make inquiry as to the education of the young men from whom you would select. Very seldom indeed, he says, would an uneducated young man rise to "a better place and b

stem of common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and constituting it a police more effectual than peace officers and prisons." By so doing he thinks they would bestow a benefaction upon those who, from the accident of birth or parentage, are subjected to the privations and temptations of poverty, and would do much to remove the prejudice and to strengthen the bands of union between the

n short, in all respects the most useful, profitable, and the safest operatives; and as a class, they are more thrifty, and more apt to accumulate property for themselves. "I am very sure," he remarks, "that neither men of property nor society at large have any thing to fear from a more general diffusion of knowledge, nor from the extension and improvement of our system of common schools. On our pay-roll for the last m

y are generally employed in the higher departments, where the pay is better. This is true; but this again may be, in most cases, fairly attributed to their better education, which brings us to the same result. If I had included in my calculations the remaining fourteen of the forty, who were mostly sweepers and scrubbers, and who are paid by the day, the contrast would have been still more striking; but, having no well-ed

l thousand men in his employment. The testimony of this gentleman is corroborative of that already presented. Testimony similar to the preceding might be introduced from the proprietors and superintendents of the principal manufa

al riches. It has a right, therefore, not only to be included in the grand inventory of a nation's resources, but to be placed at the very head of that inventory. It is not only the most honest and honorable, but the surest means of amassing property. Considering education, then, as a pr

re in perpetual contact with the forces of nature. We are constantly dependent upon them for the pecuniary returns and profits of our investments, and hence the necessity

uce the same crop will exhaust it of the elements on which that particular crop will best thrive. If the chemical ingredients and affinities of the soil are not understood, an attempt may be made to reenforce it by substances with which it is already surcharged, instead of renovating i

s described by an intelligent friend of the author, who left this country a year ago. He says this is a "most beautiful country, with the finest climate in the world. But its inhabitants, who are principally Spaniards and Indians, are in a state of semi-barbarism, and consequently its resources are, to a certain extent, undeveloped. The land, which is generally level and of the richest quality, is divided into ranchos or plantations, the largest of which are twenty miles square, and feed twenty or thirty thousand head of wild cattle, with horses and mules in proportion. But these are all. The arts are in the lowest state imaginable. Their houses are mere pens, without pen floors; their plows are pointed logs; their yokes are straight sticks, which they tie to the horns of their oxen; and every implement of industry shows an equal want of ingenuity and enterprise. They are too indolent to raise much

and the cultivation in our children of the faculties of observing, comparing, and reasoning, through the medium of good schools, would add

erials into finished fabrics. This ability to make exact and skillful applications of science to an unlimited variety of materials, and especially to the subtile but most energetic agencies of nature, is one of the latest attainments of the human mind. It is remarkable that astronomy, sculpture, painting, poetry, oratory, and even ethical philosophy, had

conquest or partitioning of the territory of any neighboring nation, and without rapine or the confiscation of property already accumulated by others. It is an absolute creation of wealth-that is, of those articles, commodities, and improvements which we appraise and set down as of a certain moneyed value alike in the inventory of a deceased man's estate and in the grand valuation of a nation's capital. These contributions to human welfare have been derived from knowledge; from knowing how to employ those natural agencies which from the beginning of the race had existed, but had lain dormant or run uselessly away. For mechanical purposes, what is wind, or water, o

e useful arts. But it must be an awakening to thought, not to feeling merely. In the first place, a clearness of perception must be acquired, or

something to or removing something from the original perceptions, in order to make a more perfect plan or model. If a ship-wright, for instance, would improve upon all existing specimens of naval architecture, he would first examine as great a number of ships as possible; this done, he would revive the image which each had imprinted upon his mind, and, with all the fleet

vely brought before the understanding of the pupil. He would thus become familiar with the substances of the material world, and with their manifold properties and uses; and he would learn the laws, comparatively few, by which results infinitely diversified are produced. When such a student goes out into life, he carries, as it were, a plan or model of the world in his own mind. He can not, therefor

deaf man among sounds. The Romans carried their aqueducts from hill-top to hill-top, on lofty arches erected at immense expenditure of time and money. One idea-that is, a knowledge of the law of the equilibrium of fluids

ducts at once cheaper, better, and by more expeditious methods; and by doing a vast variety of things ot

if done in season, can be done in a minute, but which, if not seasonably done, will require hours, perhaps days or weeks for their performa

hich can do only the thing for which its wheels or springs were made. Brute force expends itself unproductively. It is ignorant of the manner in which Nature works, and hence it can not avail itself of her mighty agencies. Often, indeed, it attempts to oppose N

n one, and so far add two hundred per cent. to the length of his life as a business man. What innumerable millions has the invention of the cotton-gin, by Whitney, added, and will continue to add, to the wealth of the world! a part of which is already realized, but vastly the gre

ents on which accuracy in scientific observations depends, have originated in New England? I believe no adequate reason can be assigned but the early awakening and training of the power of thought in her children. Improvements, inventions, and discoveries have

development, he observed that he could employ a common immigrant or a slave, and, if he chose, could direct him to shovel a heap of sand from one spot to another, and then back into its

ll done without knowledge in the workman or domestic as with it. It is impossible for an overseer or employer at all times to supply mind to the laborer. In giving directions for the

e articles with us; while our capital, when loaned, produces nearly double the rate of English interest; yet against these grand adverse circumstances our manufacturers, with a small per centage of tariff, successfully compete wi

es, he was enabled to add twelve or fifteen per cent. to the speed of his machinery, without any increase of damage or danger from the acceleration. How direc

, it appears there is a difference of not less than fifty per cent. between the earnings of the least educated and of the best educated operatives-between those who make their marks instead of writing their names, and those who have been acceptably employed in school-keeping. Now suppose the whole forty thousand females engaged in the various kinds of ma

lations of daughters, wives, and mothers must exceed the supposition-the effect of giving them all an education equal to the best would at once raise their earnings, annually, two hundred millions of dollars! But this is the lowest sense in which we can estimate the value of education, even in the ster

stroying much of the glass upon which he worked. But the invention of a simple tool has put it into the power of the merest tyro in the trade to cut glass with facility, and without loss. A man who had a mi

In making the best leather, the hides used to lay in the pit for six, twelve, or eighteen months, and sometimes for two years, the tanner being obliged to wait all this time for a return of his capital. By the modern proc

d, and in England hundreds and probably thousands of men have yielded and forfeited their lives, is now performed in an unexposed

that the inventor of the new mode of refining sugar made more money in a shorter time, a

n construction of paddle-wheels for a steamboat, which construction was tested and condemned as early as 1810.[42] A case once came within my own knowledge, says Mr. Mann, of a person who spent a fortune in mining for coal, when a work on geology, which would have cost but a dollar, and might have been read in a week, would have informed him that the stratum where he began to exc

a member of the partnership. What is true of the above-mentioned cases is true of the whole circle of those arts by which human life is sustained and human existence comforted, elevated, and embel

the stone hatchet or the fish-shell of the savage, an almost infinite variety of instruments, which have sharpness for cutting or solidity for striking; in the art of Vitrification or Glass-making, giving not only a multitude of commodious and ornamental utensils for the household, but substituting the window for the unsightly orifice or open casement, and winnowing light and warmth from the outward and the cold atmosphere; in the arts of Induration by Heat, from bricks dried in the sun to those which withstand the corrosion of our climate for centuries or resist the intensity of the furnace; in the arts of Illumination, from the torch cut from the fir or pine tree to the brilliant gas-light which gives almost a solar splendor to the nocturnal darkness of our cities; in the arts of Heating and Ventilation, which at once supply warmth for comfort and pure air for health; in the art of Building, from the hollowed trunk of a tree or the roof-shaped cabin, to those commodious and lightsome dwellings which betoken the taste and competence of our villages and cities; in the art of Copying or Printing, from the toilsome process of hand-copyi

must behold it. But there is the same kind of difference between contemporaries, fellow-townsmen, and fellow-laborers. Though the uninstructed man works side by side with the intelligent, yet the mental difference between them places them in the same relation to each other that a past age bears to the present. If the ignorant man knows no more respecting any particular art or branch of business than was generally known during the last century, he belongs to the last century, and he

instrument they had used, supposing there was some magic in the apparatus itself, by which the seeming miracle had been performed; but, as they could not steal the art of the operator with the instrument which he

ive genius. We do not reflect that they have required the lapse of centuries and the successive application of thousands of minds for the attainment of their present excellence; that they have advanced from a less to a more perfect form by steps and gradations almost as imperceptible as the growth by which an infant expands to the stat

INISHES PAUPE

neration, and of securing in the minds and in the morals of the people the best protection for the institutions of soci

e arranged also according to wealth, morals, and general happiness; at the same time, the condition of the people

their deportment than the uninstructed; and that for those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly goods, the most effectual way of making insurance on 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 officer

d practical educators and by liberal-minded capitalists of both hemispheres. The views of several of our principal American manufacturers have been alrea

ms, and avail themselves of the facilities afforded by libraries, by scientific lectures, and by lyceums. The older of the more educated workmen spend their time chiefly with their families, reading and walking out with them. The time of the uneducated classes is spent very differently, and chiefly in the grosser sensual indulgences. Mr. Fairbrain has given his own time as president of a lyceum for the use of the working classes, which furnishes the means of instruction in arithmetic, mathematics, drawing, and men

tablishment at Zurich: we also employ about two hundred men in our cotton-mills there, and about five hundred men in our cotton manufactories in the Tyrol and in Italy. I hav

y be distinguished from any intelligence imparted by the labors of the schoolmaster," and remarking in relation to the influence of education upon the value of labor-where

ned kind; they are more refined themselves, and they have a taste for much better society, which they approach respectfully, and consequently find much readier admittance to it; they cultivate music; they read; they enjoy

difficult to find another instance in the history of nations of a country which has made such rapid progress in the diminution of crime, the increase of public wealth, and the diffusion of comfo

ese pests to society it was estimated that there were not less than two hundred thousand. Besides these, there were the more gentlemanly, though less tolerable robbers, such as the

d settling in life, and at every future period; and it is to this habit, handed down from father to son, that the Scotch owe their morality. One of their own writers sa

pauperism and crime from among those who become the happy subjects of its uplifting power, let us, for the purpose of becomin

present century, there was but ONE newspaper published in this country! "Yes, one miserable government gazette was the sole channel through which twelve or fourteen millions of people,

y one in every three hundred and forty-six of the population! M. Jonnés estimates the population at about fourteen millions and a half, and assuming, as he does, that about the same fraction of the population is receiving education as in 1803, he estimates the present number of children in school in the whole of Spain

lleges, and universities, the creation of past times, but which still exist, he remarks, that "these institutions were intended for a state of society which had nothing in common with that of the pres

asses, as well in the towns as in the rural districts. Up to the present time, the people have received no other instructi

w to read, "books and study are almost out of the question, because, unless in the principal citi

and the number convicted of wounding, etc., with intent to kill, was fourteen. These numbers are lamentably large. That the horrible crime of murder should ever be perpetrated is a most melancholy fact; and that so many as thirteen murders should be committed in one year must fill the mind of every moral man and lover of his country with grief and shame. But great as this number is absolutely, it sinks into insignificance when compared with the number of murders perpetrated in Spain; for

rst and weakest government that ever held together. Justice of no kind has any existence; there is the most lamentable insecurity of person and property; redress is never certain, because both judgment and the execution of the laws are left to men so inadequately pa

rid and Seville, and the sum offered for their protection was not objected to, but another difficulty was started. 'I have nothing to say against the terms you offer,' said the negotiator for the banditti, 'and I will at once insure you against being molested by robbers of consequence! but as for the small fry, I can not be responsible! we respect the engagements entered into by each other, but there is nothing like honor among the petty thieves.' The

prosecute the murderer of her husband speedily receives a private intimation that effectually silences her; and it has not been uncommon for money to be put into the

In this country "every thing, indeed, appears to have conspired to paralyze industry, and to render of no avail the natural fertility of the soil. The havoc of war; the plunder committed by organized and powerful bodies of robbers; the rapacity of government and of its army of officers; the exclusion of foreign good

universal among its citizens, they will eventually become a wealthy, and a highly-prosperous and happy community, even though they derive their subsistence from a naturally unfruitful soil; but, on the contrary, where popular education is neglected in a commonwealth, a

respecting prisons. According to returns to the British Parliament, the commitments for crimes in an average of nine years in proportion to population are as follows: In Ma

heriff of London, says that, on the memorial addressed to the sheriffs by 152 criminals in the same institution, 25 only signed their names in a fair hand, 26 in an illegible scrawl, and that 101, two thirds of the entire number, were m

or 1 in 141, could read and write well. One half of the 1129 prisoners were quite ignorant of the simplest truths; 37 of these, 1 in 20 of the entire number, were occasional readers of the Bible; and only one

very imperfect one. Out of 842 at Sing Sing, 289 could not read or write, and only 42-less than 1 in 20-had received a good common school

to the commission of crime, are usually found with the ignorant, uninformed, and duller part of mankind. Of 276 at one time in that institution, nearly all

lation to education and crime in a state which, according to the last general census, contained fewer persons in proportion to the whole population who were unable to read and write than any other state

s of Connecticut; and of these, many of them could not understand the plainest sentences which they read, and their moral culture had been more neglected than their intellectual. From the investigat

r, to repeat a sentiment placed at the head of this article, the different countries of the world, if arranged according to the state of education in them, will be found to be ar

greatly diminish the number of fatal accidents; that it would save many lives, prevent much of idi

e suddenly arrested. If, then, there is danger in leaping from a carriage in motion, how much greater is the hazard in jumping from a rail-road car under full headway. And yet many do this, jumping off side-wise, so that it is impossible to advance; and some even jump in the opposite direction from the motion of the car, which increases the already imminent hazard. From statistics recently collected, it appears that the grea

nd by means of pipes six inches in diameter, introduced into every room a current of fresh, pure air, which is essential to vitality, and allowed that which was vitiated by respiration to escape. The consequence was, that during the three succeeding years only 165 out of 4243 children di

nd those who have noticed what pains are taken by excessively careful mothers[48] and ignorant nurses to exclude from the lungs of infants the "free, pure, unadulterated air of heaven," and, by means of many thicknesses of enveloping shawls and blankets, require them to re-respire portions at least of their own breath, until it becomes a virulent and deadly poison, will think with me that this is a low estimate, and wonder that the swaddling-cloths of more infants do not become their winding-sheets. But, even according to this estimate, 100,000 children in the United States annually fall victims to t

led upon the wretched survivors, how many hundred thousand precious lives might be saved, and what untold wretchedness might be prevented,

his country; and it is meet that it should be so, for she has long, like a wise parent, been accustomed to care for all her children. She had most readily and generously seconded the efforts of humane men for the relief of the insane, the deaf mutes, and the blind, and made provision for their care and instruction. She extended her maternal love to the bodies o

d examined the condition of five hundred and seventy-five human beings who are condemned to hopeless idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbors, and le

umber in the commonwealth is between fourteen and fifteen hundred!" Now if we make the same estimate in proportion to the entire population, i

y idiots in every generation must be the consequence of some violation of the natural laws; that where there was so much suffering there

follows: first, the low condition of the physical organization of one or both

r both, of the immediate progenitors of the unfortunate sufferer had in some way widely departed from the normal condition of health, and violated the natural laws. That is to say, one or the other, or both of them, had been very unhealthy

means. By drunkard is meant a person who is a notorious and habitual sot. Many persons who are habitually intemperate do not get this name even now; much less would they have done so twenty-five or thirty years ag

rate persons, and may be considered as an effect of the habitual use of alcohol, even in moderate quantities. If, moreover, one considers how many children of intemperate parents there are who, without being idiots, are de

cases should be added to the seventeen. This would show that more than one twentieth of the idiots examined are offspring of the marriage of relations. Now, as marriages between near relations are by no means in the ratio of one to twenty, nor even, perhaps, as one to a thousand to the marriages between persons not related, it follows that the proportion of idiotic progeny is vastly greater in the former than in the latter case. Then it should be considered that idioc

other; of course, there were other causes to increase chances of infirm offspring besides that of the intermarriage. There were born unto them ninety-five children, of whom forty-four were idiotic, twelv

erly, a knowledge of the principles of physiology and mental science is essentially necessary. This knowledge is still more important in the treatment of idiots. Dr. Howe is of the opinion that it requires a rarer and higher kind of talent to te

ns of various kinds. They not only do not improve, but they sink deeper and deeper into bodily depravity and mental degradation. Bad, however, as is the condition of the idiots who are at public charge, and gross as is the ignorance of those who take th

selves scrofulous and puny to the last degree. Such persons are, generally, very feeble in intellect, poor in purse, and intemperate in habits. A great many of them are hard

there may be, at the most, five who are treated very judiciously; who are taught by wise and discreet persons, and whose faculties and capabilities are developed to th

y treated, and those who are neglected or abused. There are cases in our community of youths who are idiotic from birth, but who, under proper care and training, have become cleanly in person, quiet in deportment, industrious in habits, and who would almost pass in society for persons of common intelligence; and yet their natural capacity was no greater than that

worse in habits, and more confirmed in their idiocy. But the process of deterioration in the pupils has been entirely stopped, and that of improvement has commenced; and though a year is a very short time in the instruction of such persons, yet its effects are manifest in all of them. They have improved in personal appearance and habits, in general health, in vigor, and in activity of body. Some of them can cont

t has been demonstrated that idiots are capable of improvement, and that they can be raised from a state of low degradation to a higher condition. How far they can be elevated, and to what extent they may

causes a predisposition in many, and excites one where it already exists, which ultimately renders the animal propensities of our nature uncontrollable. Appetites indulged and perverted, passions unrestrained, propensiti

us from this most formidable disease (as well as from others not less appalling) as that system of instruction which teaches us how to preserve the normal condition of the body and the mind; to fortify the one against the catalogue of physical

o, and the training of the faculties of the mind be such as to counteract the over-active propensities of our nature-correcting the bias of the mind to wrong currents and to too great activity by

her institutions. In the eighteenth annual report of the physician and superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, Dr. Brigham says, "a knowledge of the nature of the disease would frequently lead to its prevention. Insanity, in most cases, ari

g the most frequent causes that predispose to insanity. But these causes are in no other way operative in producing insanity than by unduly exciting the brain. By neglect of moral discipline, a character is formed subject to violent passions, and to extreme emotions and anx

n of the mind in youth not lead to insanity or immediate disease, it predisposes to dyspepsy, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and affections allied to insanity, and which are often its precursors. Should that portion of the community who now act most wisely in obtaining a knowledge of the funct

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rk of supererogation to attempt the establishment of the proposition that education increases human happiness. I admit this seeming impropriety; for that the proposition is true may be legitimately inferred from what has gone before. But I wish to amplify and extend this thought, and to show that education has, if possible, still higher claims upon our attent

ughter. He exerts his physical powers because such exertion is necessary for his subsistence. Were it otherwise, we should most frequently find him dozing over the fire with a gaze as dull and stupid as his ox, regardless of every thing but the gratification of his appetites. He has, perhaps, been taught the art of reading, but has never applied it to the acqu

iversify the landscape of the earth, of the numerous orders of animated beings which people the ocean, the atmosphere, and the land, of the revolutions of

whether they are near us or at a distance, and whether they move or stand still, are to him matters of trivial importance. If the sun gives him light by day and the moon by night, and the clouds distil their watery treasures upon his parched fields, he is contented, and leaves all such inquiri

s, and gives no countenance to those useful inventions and public improvements which are devised by others. He sets himself against every innovation, whether religious, political, mechanical, or agricultural, and is determined to abide by the "good old customs" of his forefathers, even though they compel him to carry his grist to mill in one end of a bag, with a stone in the other to balan

res which cultivated minds so frequently experience; nor can he form those lofty and expansive conceptions of the Deity which the grandeur and magnificence of his works are calculated to inspire. He is left as a prey to all those foolish notions and vain a

dy at the rate of a hundred thousand miles in the hundredth part of a second; and that the earth is whirling round its axis from day to day with a velocity of a thousand miles every hour, are regarded by him as notions far more improbable and extravagant than the story of the "Wonderful

tratum of thought, they can never experience those pleasures and enjoyments which flow from the ex

orm no conception. He can trace back the stream of time to its commencement, and, gliding along its downward course, can survey the most memorable events which have happened in every part of its progress, from the primeval ages to the present day; the rise of empires, the fall of kings, the revolutions of nations, the battles of warriors, and the important events which have followed in their train; the progress of civilization

ers by which it is indented; the lofty ranges of mountains which diversify its surface; its winding caverns; its forests, lakes, and sandy deserts; its whirlpools, boiling springs, and glaciers; its sulph

ties, towns, and villages, and the animals peculiar to every region. In his rural walks he can not only appreciate the beneficence of Nature, and the beauties and harmonies of the vegetable kingdom in their exterior aspect, but he can also penetrate into the hidden processes which are going on in the roots, trunks, and leaves of plants a

f space, carrying along with it its vast population, at the rate of sixty thousand miles every hour, and, by the inclination of its axis, bringing about the alternate succession of summer and winter, of seed-time and harvest. By the aid o

usand miles in circumference, revolving in majestic grandeur every ten hours around a globe nine hundred times larger than the earth, while seven moons larger than ours, along with an innumerable host of stars, display their radiance to adorn the firmament of that magnificent world. He can wing his flight through the still more distant

beyond all that is visible by the optic tube, stretching out to infinity on every hand, peopled with intelligences of various orders, and all under the

mind; if it depends on the multiplicity of objects which lie within the range of its contemplation; if it is augmented by the view of scenes of beauty and sublimity, and displays of infinite intelligence and power; if it is connected with tranquillity of mind, which ge

few facts and deductions in relation to science, which demonstrate

til its passage over the sun's disc should verify the correctness of his calculations. This occurrence had never been witnessed but twice before by an inhabitant of our earth, and was never to be again seen by any person then living. A phenomenon so rare, and so important in its bearings upon astronomical science, was, indeed, well calculated to agitate th

momentous truth he was about to demonstrate that he was unable to proceed, and begged one of his companions in study to relieve him, and carry out the calculation. These are striking illustrati

sdom and omnipotence. He views this invisible agent not only as a material, but as a compound substance, composed of two opposite principles, the one the source of flame and animal life, and the other destructive to both. He perceives the atmosphere as the agent under the Almighty which produces the germination and growth of plants, and all the beauties of the vegetable creation; which preserves water in a liquid state, supports fire and flame, and produces animal heat; which sustains the clouds, and gives buoyancy to the feathered tribes; which is the cause of winds, the vehicle of smells, the medium of sounds, the source of all the pleasures we derive from the har

nic acid, the vitiating product of respiration, although immediately fatal to animals, constitutes the very life of vegetation; that in the growth of plants the vitiated air is purified and fitted again for the sustenance of animal life; and that, by a beneficent provision of the Creator, animals and vegetables are thus perpetually interchanging kindly offices. It will suffice for our present purpose simply to remind the reader that the atmosphere is compo

surface, either or both of them, the oxygen, being specifically heavier than the nitrogen or hydrogen, would settle immediately upon the earth, and, coming in contact with fires here and there, its whole surface would, in an instant of time, be enveloped in one general conflagration, and "the day of the Lord," spoken of in the Scriptures, "in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the things therein shall

Water increases in density as it becomes colder until it reaches the temperature of forty degrees-eight degrees above the freezing point-when it begins to expand. This only exception to the general law of fluids is of greater importance in the economy of nature than most persons are conscious of. As the cold season advances in the temperate and frigid zones, the water in our lakes and rivers is reduced to the temperature of f

til the whole was reduced to the temperature of thirty-two degrees; when, but for the circumstance to which we have just alluded, it would be immediately converted int

nobling influence on the mind of its possessor. The field of human happiness, then, with the virtuous, seems to enlarge in proportion as a knowledge of the works and laws of the beneficent Creator is extended. There is litt

as many more puny survivors from dragging out a miserable existence in consequence of being the offspring of ignorant or vicious parents; if it would prevent so much of idiocy, and would humanize those who are born idiots only, but have hitherto been permitted, nay, doomed to die brutes; if it would prevent so much insanity, and would save to society and their family and friends, "clothed and in their right mind," multitudes of every generation who now dwell in mental darkness and gloom; if it would increase the sum total of human happiness in proportion to its excellence, and the number of persons who are brought under its benign influence and uplifting power; if it would do all this-and that this is its legitimate tendency there can be no doubt-it would seem that