Glances at Europe / In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851.

by Horace Greeley

POPULAR EDUCATION.

The Exhibition is destined to contribute immensely to the Industrial and Practical Education of the British People. The cheap Excursion Trains from the Country have hardly commenced running yet; but it is certain that a large proportion of the mechanics, artisans and apprentices of the manufacturing towns and districts will spend one or two days each in the Palace before it closes. Superficial as such a view of its contents must be, it will have important results. Each artisan will naturally be led to compare the products of his own trade with those in the same line from other Nations, especially the most successful, and will be stimulated to discern and master the point wherein his own and his neighbor's efforts have hitherto comparatively failed. Of a million who come to gaze, only an hundred thousand may come with any clear idea of profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army; and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it, cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; and the simple adaptation of the forces now attained, the principles established, the machines already invented, to all the beneficent uses of which they are capable, would speedily transform the Industrial and Social condition of mankind. I am perfectly satisfied, for example, that Boots and Shoes may be cut out and made up by machinery with less than one-fourth the labor now required—that this would require no absolutely new inventions, but only an adaptation of those already well known. So in other departments of Industry. There is no reason for continuing to sew plain seams on thick cloth by hand, when machinery can do the work even better and twenty times as fast. I shall be disappointed if this Exhibition be not speedily followed by immense advances in Labor-Saving Machinery, especially in this country.

But out of the domain of Industry, British Progress in Popular Education is halting and partial. And the chief obstacle is not a want of means, nor even niggardliness; for the Nation is wealthy, sagacious and public-spirited. I think the influential classes generally, or at least very extensively, realize that a well managed system of Common Schools, supported by taxation on Property, would save more in diminishing the burthen of Pauperism than it would cost. I believe the Ministry feel this. And yet Mr. Fox's motion looking to such a system was voted down in the House of Commons by some three to one, the Ministry and their reliable supporters vieing with the Tories in opposing it! So the Nation is thrown back on the wretched shift of Voluntaryism, or Instruction for the poor and ignorant children to be provided, directed and paid for by their poor, ignorant and often vicious parents, with such help and guidance as self-constituted casual associations may see fit to give them. The result is and will be what it ever has been and must be—the virtual denial of Education to a great share of the rising generation.

For this suicidal crime, I hold the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Priesthoods mainly responsible, but especially the former. If they would only stand out of the way, a system of efficient Common Schools for the whole Nation might be speedily established. But they will not permit it. By insisting that no Nationally directed and supported system shall be put in operation which does not recognize and affirm the tenets of their respective creeds, they render the adoption of any such system impossible. They see this; they know it; they mean it. And nothing moves me to indignation quicker than their stereotyped cant of "Godless education," "teaching infidelity," "knowledge worthless or dangerous without Religion," &c. &c. Why, Sirs, it is very true that the People need Religious as well as purely Intellectual culture, but the former has been already provided for. You clergymen of the Established Church have been richly endowed and beneficed expressly for this work—why don't you do it? Why do you stand here darkening and stopping the gateway of secular instruction with a self-condemning assumption that your own duties have been and are criminally neglected, and that therefore others shall likewise remain unperformed? Teach the children as much Religion as you can; very few of you ever lack pupils when you give your hearts to the work; and if they prove less apt or less capable learners because they have been taught reading, writing, grammar, geography and arithmetic in secular schools, it argues some defect in your theology or its teachers. If you really wanted the children taught Religious truth, you would be right glad to have them taught letters and other rudimental lessons elsewhere, so as to be fitted to apprehend and retain your inculcations. It should suffice for the condemnation of all Established Churches ever more, that the State-paid Priesthood of Great Britain is to-day the chief impediment to a system of Common Schools throughout the British Isles.

The Catholic Clergy have more excuse. They, too unite in the impracticable requirement that the dogmas of their Church shall be taught in the schools attended by Catholic children, when they ought to teach them these dogmas out of School-hours, and be content that no antagonist dogmas are taught in the secular Schools. But they receive nothing from the State, and have good reason to regard it as hostile to their faith, therefore to suspect its purposes and watch narrowly its movements. If they would only take care to have a good system of Common School Education established and efficiently sustained in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, and other Countries wherein they are the conscience-keepers of the great majority and practically omnipotent in the sphere of moral and social effort, I could better excuse their unfortunate attitude here. As it is, the difference between them and their State-paid rivals here seems one of position rather than of principle. And, in spite of either or both, this generation will yet see Common Schools free and universal throughout this realm. But even a year seems long to wait for it.