Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

The finest bricks are made on the western shore of Lake Michigan; and the best materials for the manufacture of flint glass abound in Minnesota. Lead and copper of great purity and in astonishing abundance attract and reward industry beyond the grandest of inland seas; and silver mixed with gold in fabulous profusion draws enterprise over the diameter of earth to explore nature's great storehouse along the Pacific shores. But better and more permanently profitable for man than all else of mundane wealth, are the more substantial treasures which are buried with inexhaustible richness on the terra firma route, pre-ordained for ameliorated humanity to pursue from east to west. Coal and iron constitute the chief motor and metor of all physical improvement. Like freedom, superior intelligence, and exalted moral worth, they are the special gifts of God to those who speak the English language, and will be found most copious in those remote regions where republicans are destined to be most free.

As the prominent inventions of a people are the best exponents of their peculiar genius, and the clearest prophecies of prospective triumphs, so does the energy of their educational zeal indicate the measure and immediateness of their success. The successive departments of political and mechanical science we have severally considered above; let us now give more particular attention to the science of education as exemplified in our land.

All human progress, political, intellectual, and moral, is inseparable from material progression, by virtue of the close interconnection which characterizes the natural course of social phenomena. But the educational element must form the principal band of the scientific sheaf, from its various relations, both of subordination and of direction to all the rest. It is in this way that the homogeneous co-ordination of legitimate sciences proceeds to the fullest development, and for the widest ulterior influence on human destiny. The filiation and adaptation of all great discoveries for the popular good, affords a fine subject for grateful contemplation, and is the most exhilarating guaranty to the loftiest hopes. The general intellect, under the auspices of American freedom, now, and for the first time, is entering upon the age of ameliorating science. It is an advent to be hailed with chastened joy, and to be guarded by vigilant expectation. In comparative anatomy it is well known that a Cuvier may determine, from a single joint, tooth, or other fragment of an animal, whose species had never entered human eye or imagination, not only its general configuration, size, family, and grade in the series of organic beings, but also its physiological constitution, its manners, its food, its climatic habitation, whether in the geography or the chronology of the globe. Even so equal knowledge of the analogous laws of symmetry and mutual dependence in the social system, eventually attainable, and to be applied to extant usages or disinterred relics, will enable its possessor, by a single specimen, accurately to fix the entire condition of the corresponding people on the scale of civilization. Tried by this criterion, what monuments of national mind may we not anticipate for the future, while we contemplate the results already attained by our brief but glorious past. As the greater Newton succeeded the great Kepler, and was in turn followed by La Place, who explained the physical counterpart of his predecessor's theory by the law of gravitation imperfectly understood by its own discoverer, so do we believe that the inductive method re-established by Francis Bacon will be consummated in our central clime, amid greatly increased splendors, by the mental manhood of the twentieth century.

The great prophet of science to whom we have just referred, lived mostly in the future, and in his last will he left "his name and memory to foreign nations and to the next ages." He had crossed the Atlantic, whose storms men had penetrated for ages without perceiving the fair omens of progress, but in the confidence of his prophetic intuition he gave the name of Good Hope to the headland he had reached; as Magellan, when he beheld the boundless expanse of waters in another direction, called it the Pacific. The seeds which Bacon sowed have here sprung up, and are growing to a mighty tree, and the thoughts of millions come to lodge in its branches. Those branches spread "so broad and long, that in the ground the bended twigs took root, and daughters grew about the mother tree, a pillared shade high overarched, and echoing walks between;" walks where Literature may hang her wreaths upon the massy stems, and Art may adorn that Religion, of which Science erects the hundred-aisled temple. The preparation made for the present age, and the high anticipations entertained by the last and wisest of its precursors, is set forth as follows near the close of his Advancement of Learning: "Being now at some pause, looking back into that I have past through, this writing seemeth to me, as far as a man can judge of his own work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians make while they are tuning their instruments; which is nothing pleasant to hear, yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterward: so have I been content to tune the instruments of the muses, that they may play who have better hands. And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in which Learning hath made her third visitation or circuit, in all the qualities thereof—as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age—the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers—the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of all fortunes—the openness of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments and a mass of natural history—the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil business, as the states of Greece did in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome in respect of the greatness of her monarchy, the present disposition of these times to peace, and the inseparable propriety of time, which is ever more and more to disclose truth—I can not but be raised to this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman learning."

In 1647 the Plymouth colony of Massachusetts passed an Act "that every township of fifty householders should appoint a person to teach all the children to read and write, and that every township of one hundred families should support a grammar-school."

In the following year (1648) the Legislative Assembly of the colony of Connecticut, passed a statute in relation to education of very nearly the same purport as that passed in Massachusetts. The Puritans of New England entertained the same opinion as the Presbyterians of Scotland, that education is necessary to the performance of religious duty; and the former seem to have borrowed their ideas and system of education substantially from the latter. This was the foundation of the system of common-school education, which was adopted in the State of New York in the early part of the nineteenth century, and has been more recently adopted in nearly all the free States. While no effort has been made to give the whole population of England a common-school education, and Parliament persists in discouraging such an undertaking, our newest western States even exceed New England in their educational zeal.

The first college in America was founded on the eastern edge of Plymouth colony, and has been succeeded by a series of rivals stretching due west, so rapidly and widely multiplied in numbers and patronage, that now the new States possess richer advantages for learning than the old. A self-educated seaman, born in the same region of rock and ice, was the first to translate and publish with emendations the profoundest mathematical works of modern times; and now there are successful aspirants after like distinction, whose towers of science stand reflected on the banks of the Ohio, casting their shadows still onward before the ascending sun. It was fitting that the most learned President of the United States should travel from Pilgrim Rock to the "Mount Adams" of westward empire, whereon he laid the corner stone of the only Observatory extant, which is sustained by popular subscription, and rendered renowned by private enterprise. In that "Queen City," which seems like a thing of yesterday, not only has the pendulum of Galileo been made to measure the diameter of a single planet, but one of the most valuable inventions of this age, the astronomical clock, there first beat in its sublime reckoning of the universe. A printer born in Boston, was armed by Providence with paper and twine through which to draw harmless lightnings from the skies; and a painter in New York, under the same heavenly guidance, and at the fitting time, charged the celestial messenger with a kindred burden of human intelligence, and dispatched it first from the capitol of our Union to instruct and ameliorate mankind. Coincident with the latter discovery, mechanical science in this great metropolis perfected a still more imperial civilizer, the steam power-press; and now not an element of nature expands, not a conquest of science is matured, and not an inspiration of genius fulmines in the gloom of penury, or around the pinnacles of power, that the press does not gather all the aggregated excellence in subordination to its use, to enhance the benefactions of ennobling intelligence upon which it subsists. In Boston, ether was first applied to ameliorate the dreaded pain of surgical steel, to mitigate the bitterest physical pangs, and rob Death himself of half his spiritual terrors. In Cincinnati, the steam fire engine has just been added to other mighty conservative agents. As the general alarm aggravates midnight terrors, and the gains of a toilsome life are threatened by the remorseless conflagration, glaring in lofty defiance to ordinary resistance, a tiny match kindles the ardor of invincible union between diverse elements in united opposition, and agitated crowds are soon awed into admiring silence, as the mighty flames are speedily drowned. One of our citizens has recently mapped the ocean of international commerce with all its old currents of power sagaciously discriminated, and newly traced as the best channels of safety. Another, venturing where no predecessor had ever been has just returned from the regions of perpetual ice, to win the grateful applause of Christendom for the material wonders he discovered and the beneficent spirit he displayed. A clergyman of this city, for his researches in Palestine, was the first of four Americans who, within the last fifteen years, have been decorated with the golden medals of foreign honors; one of whom, on account of his explorations in the opposite direction, whither tends the greatest public good, has just been nominated to the highest secular dignity possible on earth.

The restless and insatiable activity of Americans in scientific research and moral heroism, was finely personated by Ulysses of old. Sick of Ithaca, Argos, Telemachus, and Penelope even, the old and indomitable mariner-king panted for untried dangers and undiscovered lands. His purpose was "to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until he died." Thus actuated, man is lifted to a higher platform of observation whence he may read the book of gemmed pictures illuminating his nights, and revealed to fill his soul with an inspiration more grand and inspiriting than any terrestrial object can communicate. It is the legitimate and appropriate sequence of the new revelations of modern science, and is designed more and more to render the master of earth free of the universe. In his heavenly Father's house are many mansions, and these with all their expansive marvels are unfolded in salutary enlargedness, in order that their predestined possessor through a corresponding education in their presence, may expand his spirit till it shall become approximatively unbounded in a creation without bounds. The telescope, the compass, the press, the locomotive, and the telegraph, have in succession, and with vastly increased degrees of power, infused into the heart of humanity a sense of freedom, and in that influence their chief benefaction consists. Each new province annexed to the magnificent domain of present knowledge points more clearly to still richer provinces beyond; and on the remotest border of all, human immortality and infinite progress are most legibly inscribed. "Forward" and "forever" are exhortations not only vocal in the music of the spheres, but are repeated to the adventurer by the remotest billows, and quicken the passion for profounder investigation in the darkest depths.

The regulator of the steam-engine was invented in Massachusetts, where also originated most of the superior cotton and woolen machinery now generally employed. The locomotive was there entirely re-cast, and immensely improved. When the perfected "iron horse" thence advanced, surmounted by that indigenous embodiment of democratic huzzas, the steam whistle, "Young America" was just beginning to go ahead. When in the laboratory of the University in this city, the sun-picture was first invented, simultaneously with the labors of Daguerre, the same promising youth was favored with a glance of what he is yet to be. And when that first telegraphic message, "What hath God wrought!" was let fly with the lucid freedom of lightning, Young America, standing on the summit of six thousand years, and born to renovate the race whose final destiny he represents, had then, indeed, begun to talk.

A comprehensive view of political, mechanical, and educational science in our country will teach us that the mightiest minds are more and more compelled to serve the masses; and that the most enormous outlay of capital in either ponderous or exquisite producing agents, is all in favor of the undistinguished populace, and not for the special advantage of a select few. The most subtle and refined machinery, for example, is not applied to the most delicate and elegant kind of work, such as gold and silver, jewels and embroidery. These luxuries are mainly executed by hand, while the most expensive machinery is brought into play where operations on the commonest materials are to be performed, because these are executed on the widest scale. Such is especially the case when coarse and ordinary wares are manufactured for the many. This is why such a vast and astonishing variety of artificial power is used in our country and age. The machine with its million fingers works for millions of purchasers, while in lands less free, where magnificence and beggary stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art and Science labor for princely aristocrats only; here, the great mass of the people are their chosen and most munificent patrons.