Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone."
Teachers are so situated that they may give wholesome advice; while parents—and I say it with respect—are quite likely, under the influence of an instinctive belief that their children are fitted for any place within the range of human labor or human ambition, to make fatal mistakes. While all pursuits and professions, if honest, are equally honorable, the individual selection must be determined by taste, circumstances, individual habits, and often by physical facts. It is not for one person to do everything, but it is for each person to do at least one thing well. As a general rule, the painter, who has spent his youth and manhood in studying the canvas, had better not study the stars; and the artist, who has power to bring the form of life from the cold marble, has no right to solve problems in geometry, weigh planets, or calculate eclipses. The proper choice of the business of life may do much to perfect our social system, and it will certainly advance our material prosperity. There is everywhere in our civilization mutual dependence, and there must be mutual support. In no other way can we advance to our destiny as becomes an enlightened people.
But all of life and education, either to pupil, teacher, or man, is not to be found in the school-room. The common period of school-life is sufficient only for elementary education. The average school-going period is ten years. Of this, one-half is spent in vacations and absences, so that each child has about five years of school-life. Only one-fourth of each day is spent in the school-room; and the continuous attendance, therefore, is about fifteen months, equal to the time which most of us give to sleep, every four or five years of our existence. This view leads me to say again that it is the duty of the teacher in this brief period to lay a good foundation for subsequent scientific and classical culture. More than this cannot be accomplished; and, where this is accomplished, and a taste for learning is formed, and the means to be employed are comprehended, a satisfactory school-life has been passed.
Education—universal education—is a necessity; and, as there is no royal road to learning, so there is no aristocracy of mental power depending upon social or pecuniary distinctions. The New England colonies, and Massachusetts first of all, established the system of education now called universal or public. It was not then easy to comprehend the principle which lies at the foundation of a system of public instruction. We are first to consider that a system of public instruction implies a system of universal taxation. The only rule on which taxes can be levied justly is that the object sought is of public necessity, or manifest public convenience. It quite often happens that men of our own generation are insensible or indifferent to the true relation of the citizen to the cause of education. Some seem to imagine that their interest in schools, and of course their moral obligation to support them, ceases with the education of their own children. This is a great error. The public has no right to levy a tax for the education of any particular child, or family of children; but its right of taxation commences when the education or plan of education is universal, and ceases whenever the plan is limited, or the operations of the system are circumscribed.
No man can be taxed properly because he has children of his own to educate; this may be a reason with some for cheerful payment, but it has in itself no element of a just principle. When, however, the people decide that education is a matter of public concern, then taxation for its promotion rests upon the same foundation as the most important departments of a government. Yet, many generations of men came and passed away before the doctrine was received that, as a public matter, a man is equally interested in the education of his neighbor's children as in the education of his own. As parents, we have a special interest in our children; as citizens, it is this, that they may be honest, industrious, and effective in their labors. This interest we have in all children.
The safety of our persons and property demands their honesty; our right to be exempt from pauper and criminal taxes requires habits of universal industry; and our part in the general wealth and prosperity is increased by the intelligent application of manual labor in all the walks of life.
A man may, indeed, be proud of the attainments of his family, as men are often proud of their ancestry; yet they possess little real value as a family possession. The pride of ancestry has no value; it
"Is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself