Popular Education

ves force to public opinion, it is essential that

nt is important and useful to Americans, but that it is absolutely indispensable to carr

munity, 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 suppor

w 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

al 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 sub

g 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 shor

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 generati

hrough 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 c

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 th

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 an

hey 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

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 provinc

nd 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

n 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 no

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

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 th

d 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

ance 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

lic 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 har

ed 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 especiall

mas 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 c

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 t

quate 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 t

eventeen millions. Of this number, five hundred and fifty thousand were whites over twenty years of age, who could not read and write.

n 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

ampshire, in which the proportion is one in one hundred and fifty-nine. In Massachusetts it is one in ninety. In Maine, one in

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, whos

hat 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 a

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

uate 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 negl

arshals, 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 document

nd 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

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

ould 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 ar

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, a

red 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

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

ldren 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 schoo

, 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 n

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 le

. 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

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

he 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 th

pulation 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 rema

c 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 th

olored 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 pub

mpetency 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 Gove

e a few years ago, proposes a plan for the improvement of common education. The first and greatest existing evil which he specifies is the

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

s: "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 re

e 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

opular education in the United Slates are inadequate to the requirements of a

ght 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-g

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

tion 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

TY OF NATION

wledge is the precursor and protector of republican institutions; and in it we must confide, as the conservative power that will watch

the people, to be effectual, must here, as elsewhere, to a great extent, be the work of the state; and that an expense, of

uires 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, inte

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 othe

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 p

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 sustenanc

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

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 persever

n, 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 scho

eaths 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 t

unt 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 i

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 a

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 i

n 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 cultiva

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

of the race depends upon the attention we bestow in perfecting our systems of public instruction and rendering their blessings universal. I will

r 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 su