1842.] of the Public Lands for Education. 181 confined in courts and cabinets, has come to dwell with the people. How shall we entertain these heavenly visiters? Remember, they have come to teach, not to be taught. They will listen to our complaints, answer our inquiries, reward our investigations, but they will have none of our dictation. Submission is the condition on which they bless mortals. Will our government continue? Some predict its downfall, many fear it, more hope for it. We need not fear when any cry lo here, and lo there; fix your eye on the people; if ever the "abomination of desolation" lights on our country, it will first be seen perching on the people. How do they appear? Are they ignorant, vicious, discontented, lazy? Then know that the time of our destruction draweth nigh. Is ours a government of law? The laws themselves spring from the opinion of the people, and partake of its character. We have no crown, no throne, no establishment; we are all lords. Virtue is our king, and partaking of her we are sovereign. No one can appropriate her; she is more than sufficient for all. "Maxima reverentia debetur puero," was a maxim with the Romans. The dignity of the state ought to be brought to the door of the Sunday and the common school; virtue, clad in celestial garments, ought here to be unrobed; every power within man, chastened and educated by sanctitude severe, ought to be applied to the duties of the citizen, the man. We have been minding high things, we must condescend to men of low estate. Would any be great among us? let us first see if he will consent to be the servant of all. If not, he is not fit for power; power is not safe with him. Do you say that that boy in rags, in filth, in ignorance, is beneath you? May be so; but his hand is strong enough to fire the capitol. A kind look, a word of encouragement from you, will gladden his heart, may make him your friend, and the defender of his country. He is an integral part of the state, and shall he be neglected and the state not guilty? Man was not made for the prison and the gallows; his destination was higher, and his end ought to be more glorious. If ever the poor-house, the prison and the gallows, are put away from amongst us, they must be exchanged for the common school and the academy. It is better to encourage virtue than to punish crime, to foster infancy than to punish age. "The ignorant child, left to grow up into the deeper ignorance of manhood, with all its jealousies and narrow-mindedness, and its superstitions, and its penury of enjoyments; poor amid the intellectual and moral richness of this universe, blind in this splendid temple which God has lighted up, and famishing amid the profusions of omnipotence," no wonder he is wretched and becomes guilty. The beautiful, the good and the true are not for him; he has nor eye, nor ear, nor heart; he perceives not the majesty of truth, nor the loveliness of virtue; pressed with want, he has no appetite for benevolence, and is a stranger to heroic enjoyments; the darkening elucidations of his own mind shed on all the works of God and man, what wonder that he gropes at noon-day. And this man, so in need of all things for which man ought to live, and for which it is glorious to die, is beneath the notice of the rich man, the learned man, and the great man; then shame on riches, shame on learning, shame on greatness-no, rather, shame on this worthless prostitution of God's great gifts to man. Now, if the ignorance and wretchedness of the people could be confined to the obscurity in which they labor and suffer much as their condition would be to be deplored it would be deprived of one half of the evils now most to be dreaded. The misfortune is, that this wretched creature is a public man, a part of the state. His influence is felt at the election; his voice is heard in the legislature, and it sounds to us from the bench of justice. His power is irresistible in making and executing the laws, for his name is legion. When the contest comes, the issue will be not less dreadful than righteous; for then it will be found that the people would have saved the state, if the state had educated the people. Much remains to be done; when the legislatures shall have provided the funds they will have done their duty, but the work will be but commenced. The notions of the people must be corrected; the mass of them think that their children, if educated, must press into the learned professions, as they will then be unfitted for vulgar toil, than which we scarcely know a more silly or a more preposterous notion. Professional life offers less than almost any other department. The mass of professional men in this country work hard, live poor, and die poor. Every where there appears to be a rush for the top of the ladder; few think how giddy, airy and worthless are high places, nor wish nor seek the solid wealth and contentment that humble life secures to industry and frugality. A head full of knowledge 1842.] of the Public Lands for Education. 183 not applied to practical life, is a great lumber-room, at best a toy-shop. The greatness and the true glory of our country will appear when the discoveries of science, and the refinements of literature, shall condescend to ornament our farmhouse and our work-shop; in this way, humble, plain life, will become honorable and desirable, universal contentment will follow universal prosperity, and the latter will drive envy and jealousy from the pursuits and abodes of Politics will cease to be a trade, and government will come into the hands of the people; the rulers and the ruled will be one and the same. Think not that we shall then be in want of great men, of learning and eloquence; the mass of the people pervaded "by an intense desire to know good things, and the dearest charity to communicate the knowledge of them to others," we shall every where find those who can serve and honor their country. men. We love our fellow men: we cling to this topic: our heart lingers with fondness around the abodes of ignorance and wretchedness, pained to see a fellow creature boasting of his freedom, not knowing that he is yet but half free; ignorant that the truth must set him free before he can be free indeed. Never has God laid on any generation of men such a responsibility as rests on this. It is painful to think how this responsibility will fare in the halls of the state legislatures at their approaching session. Alas! the people are in bondage! those who have the power, have not the will to unloose their burdens. Not one fourth of the physical energy of this country is developed; nor will it be developed till a better education is given to the people. Those who bear the burdens of society, bear them "by main strength and stupidness." Improvements have been made for all who could pay for them; but "the destruction of the poor is their poverty." We are not of those who fear the people, wretched as they are; of late our fears are turned to another and a higher direction, where vice and depravity are voluntary where the choice has been made by those who "see the right and still the wrong pursue." Almost every age has thus far produced a prodigy of humanity a genius born in the prodigality of heaven, and sent down on the wings of truth and love to scatter the riches and blessings of heaven through the abodes of wretched men. Is there not now, some where amongst us, some one fired with uncommon ardor, burning with phi lanthropy, to whom God has given the fortune and the talent, and to whom man has given the cultivation, who will, for the sake of "the dearest charity," undertake the cause of the people? Some one for whom all the high prizes of ambition are too low for whom all the great themes of human glory are too small-who, emulous of immortality, will fearlessly consecrate himself to the service of those who have nothing but their hearts to give, and generously commit his fame "to other generations and to other times?" We are not fond of offering incense to public men; it is not safe. If worthy of it, they can do without it; if not, it is doubly pernicious. But we cannot take leave of this great subject without offering to the honorable gentleman, whose speech has furnished the occasion for our remarks, our hearty thanks for his generous exertions in this cause. The country has formed high expectations of him, and has yet, from these first fruits, much to expect from him. Shall we be disappointed? ART. VIII. The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France, in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. By WILLIAM JAMES. New Edition, with Additions and Notes, by Captain CHAMIER, R. N. London: 1837. 6 vols. 8vo. THE recent appearance of a new edition of James's Naval History of Great Britain, repeating all the former misrepresentations in his narrative of the events connected with our country, seems to us to offer a fit occasion for examining its claims to the authenticity of history; and in doing this, we shall find no difficulty, we think, in convicting the writer not only of a uniform violation of truth in his record of every thing that concerns ourselves, but also of such malignity of spirit as must disqualify him for his office, and destroy his credibility as a historian. We may however observe, in the outset, that the virulence which is the prominent trait of Mr. James's character, is not confined to the enemies of his country. It has provoked numerous controversies with British naval officers, of the 1842.] Violent Abuse of Americans. 185 merits of which, of course, we have no desire to discuss, and we refer to them only as conclusive evidence that even in the community where his work might expect to receive the most favor, its veracity is doubted. Even Lord Collingwood, whom we have been accustomed to regard as the model of an English naval officer, is made the subject of his animadversions, accompanied with his habitual incivility. Though the faithful historian must show that he is writing for mankind, and not for his own nation only, still, in recounting the deeds of his countrymen, he may be pardoned if in the spirit of patriotism he discovers a leaning in their favor. He can, however, by no means plead patriotism as his justification, if, like Mr. James, he falsifies events, and gilds the successes, or conceals the defeats of his friends, at the expense of truth. He also mistakes the nature and duties of this virtue, if he employs it in keeping alive, and exasperating a passion for war, and encouraging a permanent sentiment of hostility between two nations. If the If the peace-makers are blessed, what must he expect who devotes his life, and its labors, to foster and strengthen the infuriated passions which a state of active warfare necessarily generates-passions which would expire with the occasion that called them forth, were they not continued and propagated by such writers as Mr. James; which impede the progress of humanity and civilization, and retard, if they do not wholly obstruct, the peaceful accommodation of the unavoidable difficulties that from time to time interrupt the harmony of nations? No one who reads this misnamed history can fail to remark the spirit of bitter antipathy to this country that pervades it, exhibiting itself in passages like the following: “Every citizen of every town in the United States, to which a creek leads that can float a canoe, becomes henceforward 'a merchant;' and the grower of wheat or tobacco sends his son to a counting-house, that he may be initiated in the profitable art of falsifying ship's papers, and covering belligerent property. Here the young American learns to bolt custom-house oaths by the dozen, and to condemn a lie only when clumsily told, or when timorously or inadequately applied. After a few years of probation, he is sent on board a vessel as mate, or supercargo; and, in due time, besides fabricating fraudulent papers, and swearing to their genuineness, he learns (using a homely phrase) to humbug British officers, and to decoy and make American citizens of British seamen." "But is a writer who stands pledged to deal impartially between nation and |