education of every child in the commonwealth. The public purse, private munificence, political prejudice, sectarian zeal, have all combined to urge on this mighty enterprise. The moment the schools were well organized it was found that another, and a far higher order of teachers was wanted. Normal schools immediately were established, and this great want was supplied. We shall look there to see if all the productive energies of the state are not increased, if the expenses of criminal courts, poor-houses, etc., etc., are not diminished, and more than all, if purity and intelligence do not spread through all the departments of society, at a rate that shall, in a tenfold degree, more than compensate for all the expenditures for popular education. New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, in part, and other states entire, are following this noble example. There are urgent reasons why every state in the Union should press hard after Massachusetts, and if possible outstrip her, in her career of popular education.

In this great work, by far the greatest that ever engaged the attention of a popular government, we are behind almost every Christian nation on the face of earth. And yet, strange to say, we continually boast, nay, devoutly offer our thanksgivings publicly to God, for our superiority over all other branches of the human family. A little investigation would disturb our complacency on this subject: if it should fortunately humble us, so far as to look into our condition and to seize hold of our permanent interests, it would be well. So rapid is the increase of our population, that as yet we have not, in our popular systems of education, been able to keep pace with it. In England, in ten years from the time that, according to Lord Brougham, "the schoolmaster was abroad" in four hundred and eighty-seven parishes, the number of children that received the benefit of a popular education increased from fifty thousand to one hundred and five thousand. While in many of the states the proportion of the number educated is falling behind that of our population, England has doubly distanced hers. In Prussia, according to the last estimate, thirteen out of every fifteen children, actually attend public schools. By the same authority, we are informed, that in Austria, Germany and Sweden, scarcely a child grows up uneducated. It is difficult to find, in Sweden, one person in a thousand who cannot read and

Lord Brougham.

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write. Even Russia is pressing hard upon us. one hundred and sixty thousand children of soldiers and recruits are educated at the expense of the crown.

How stands the account with ourselves? "This country contains more than four millions of children who ought to be under the influence of common schools. By a recent estimate, it appears that more than a million of children are growing up in the United States, in ignorance and without the means of education; of these, two hundred and fifty thousand are said to be in Pennsylvania." Another estimate has made the number for Pennsylvania somewhat less. But we need not stop to make out the apportionment to the states; in deep humility, we ought to admit the statement. Do you ask for the consequences? Never, in this country, and we devoutly hope, in any other, has there been such an increase of crime of every kind that denotes deep corruption in the heart of the people, as this country has presented for the last twenty or thirty years. The criminal prosecutions in many places have increased with appalling rapidity. The worst of it is, that the people are not secure; life and property are not safe; it is in vain to look for relief till the popular mind and conscience are set right. The fountains must be purified before the streams that issue from them can be made pure. popular will and let it be repeated till it passes into a proverb-the popular will is the law and the authority of the land. No legislation can be efficient that does not reach, and remould, and purify it.

The

Is it the duty of the state to enact good and wholesome laws, and to see that they are faithfully executed? It is a secondary duty, and an inferior one. The great and primary duty of the state in all popular governments, is the education of the people. Ought the people to be taxed to support the government? With twofold zeal and cheerfulness ought they to solicit taxation to educate the people. Do not mistake us; we mean education, not nonsense,-useful knowledge and the contented pursuit of an honest calling, not vain notions and disgust for industry. Do you say that the poor man has no right to put his hand into your pocket, and take out as much money as he wants to educate his child? But you will admit his right to use your money to prosecute him and to punish him, when he has broken the laws. Now which is the best? To spend ten dollars a-year in educating the child into an useful citizen, or ten times that amount to prosecute and punish the grown-up man in the penitentiary or on

the gallows? The people, "the eternal people," must be educated; they do not, can not, will not educate themselves. The state must do it; this bill the state must pay, either at the door of the school-house or at the bar of the prosecuting attorney. In all conscience which is the best, which is the cheapest, a high-school, or a poor-house? schoolmasters. paid at a moderate rate, or lawyers, judges, jurors, and jailors paid at a high rate?

Now, the grand objection raised against this system, is its highest ornament and recommendation. It gives the poor man a legal, peremptory claim on the rich man, and makes it his interest and duty to serve the poor man well. At every election, when taxes are laid, the rich man must open his pocket and let the poor man take out what the state thinks he needs to educate his children. The rich and poor are brought together. Strange that there should be such an outcry against it, when it bears one of the strongest features of democracy, and is so like the gospel of the Son of God. It is one of the strongest bonds of national union; it is both the cheap foundation and the chief defence of the republic. The struggle of pride and ambition to destroy the equality of the people, and to sunder the bonds of union, is in too many cases successful. The school fund offers a firm resistance. Few men are rich; the mass of mankind will be poor, but poor only as they are ignorant and vicious; virtue and intelligence form the highest order of power, as far above the force of wealth and authority, as the persuasion of angels surpasses the threats of fiends.

"But the people themselves," it is said, and truly, "will not receive the school fund, and do not want it." And what does this prove? Conclusively the imperative necessity of education. The repugnance of mankind in general, to every form of intellectual and moral improvement, is always in the exact ratio to their want of it. But what is the remedy? simply education. Those parts of the country in which the school system is now the most popular and most sought after, are the very regions in which it was, on the first offer of it, detested. De Witt Clinton rendered himself unpopular by his school system for New York. But how stands the matter now? It is, more than all his other great acts, the sure basis of his fame; interwoven with the thoughts and feelings, and adorned with the gratitude and love of the people, his name is immortal. If the people dislike education, the remedy is

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at hand; educate them. If they refuse to be taxed, educate them; if they will not receive the school system after it is provided for them, still the remedy is, educate them. Action, action, action was the system of eloquence with the Greek. Education, education, education is the whole of popular government.

But the people are not alone in fault. Cupidity is strong in all men, strongest in ignorant men. It was not to be expected that men would cheerfully part with money till they became sensible of the advantages to be derived from it. The school system was new; they had not seen it tried. In many places the schools were managed badly; the teachers were incompetent; some had no love for the work; the children did not improve. In other places the school fund had been used for political purposes. Altogether the people rebelled till they saw that good was accomplished. This was what ought to have been expected, and should have surprised no one. But when the common school system has been long enough in operation to bring out the blessings which it has in store for the people, nothing can induce them to part with it but a higher and more expensive form of education.

There is a fault on the part of the educated classes. They keep themselves too much aloof from ignorant people; the knowledge which they possess will never find its right application till it is distributed, poured upon the heads of the people, given freely. To the mass of mankind the pleasures and advantages of knowledge are the hidden treasures of a sealed book; they know not where to look for them, how to grasp or retain them. Like the man at the pool of Siloam, they are helpless and must have aid. The love of knowledge must first be infused into their hearts, and then knowledge itself must be brought within their reach. Man's mind is darkness till knowledge enters and drives it out; so the sun disperses the darkness of night simply by shining; all he wants is the hour of rising, and all is done. Man's heart is discord, strife, contention; the jarring of bad passions on a stupid or accusing conscience; it never can contain or send forth the sweet concord of harmonious sounds," till truth and love enter and take up their abodes; till they turn his baser nature" into the soul's essence, and all be made immortal." How little would it cost an educated man in a village or a town, once or twice a week, for an hour or two at

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a time, to unlock his stores of knowledge, and without diminishing his treasures distribute them among the people, with the consciousness that he multiplies his existence, and all his enjoyments, by the numbers who listen! Can any man propose to himself a higher object to live for than immortal minds? Compared with this the attainments made by the "budge doctors of the Stoic fur," are poor indeed.

Republicanism is a grand machine of government, but wo betide us if we bring the wrong power to bear on the wheel that sets it in motion. The springs of government, touched and controlled by ignorance and vice, the worst form of bad ambition, produce nothing but "confusion worse confounded." This same machine of government, moved and controlled by virtue, intelligence and wisdom, guiding public movements and reaching the springs of action in the soul of the individual man, is the beau ideal of human government. So instructed the people can govern themselves; all they ask is to be let alone; they can be trusted to take care of themselves, for they can see and know. But a mind uneducated is full fraught with vice; just in proportion to its greatness is it to be feared.

The time has been when a profession of patriotism laid a heavy demand for toil, suffering, blood, sometimes for life itself. The times are changed. The modern patriotism is a different thing; it is very suspicious, it looks very like lipservice for the ease, enjoyment, indulgence, the honors and emoluments of office. The patriots of other days bled and died for the people; our modern patriots can scarcely speak to them; let our great men, our public men, come down among the people to enlighten, to correct, to console, and to bless them with their knowledge, their superior virtue and integrity, and they will be borne in their hearts, yea, "in their heart of hearts." We now want education, not to make men shine in public station, but to adorn private life, to illustrate the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, the inventions of mechanics, the enterprise of commerce; we want philosophy, to alleviate the burdens of the multitude, to make sweat pleasant and toil acceptable. We have at last found that science, after ascending the heavens in majesty to control their movements, may descend with dignity to the farm-yard and the work-shop. Philosophy, weary of airy, useless speculation, has at last consented to improve the hoe, the axe, and the plough. The science of government, no longer to be