THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.
Remarks in the Senate, on the Bill to establish a Department of Education, February 26, 1867.
MR. PRESIDENT,—I am unwilling that this bill should be embarrassed by any question of words. I am for the bill in substance, whatever words may be employed. Call it a bureau, if you please, or call it a department; I accept it under either designation. The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dixon] has not too strongly depicted the necessity of the case. We are to have universal suffrage, a natural consequence of universal emancipation; but this will be a barren sceptre in the hands of the people, unless we supply education also. From the beginning of our troubles, I have foreseen this question. Through the agency and under the influence of the National Government education must be promoted in the Rebel States. To this end we need some central agency. This, if I understand it, is supplied by the bill before us.
Call it a bureau or a department; but give us the bill, and do not endanger it, at this moment, in this late hour of the session, by unnecessary amendment. Sir, I would, if I could, give it the highest designation. If there is any term in our dictionary that would impart peculiar significance, I should prefer that. Indeed, I should not hesitate, could I have my way, to place the head of the Department of Education in the Cabinet of the United States,—following the practice of one of the civilized governments of the world. I refer to France, which for years has had in its Cabinet a Minister of Education. But no such proposition is before us. The question is simply on a name; and I hope we shall not take up time with regard to it.
The bill passed both Houses of Congress, and became a law.[90]