The institutions of a republic are endangered by the ignorance of the masses on the one hand, and by intelligent, but unprincipled and vicious aspirants to office and places of emolument on the other. Where these two classes coexist to any considerable extent, the safety of the republic is jeoparded; for they have a strong sympathy with each other, and it is the constant policy of the latter to increase the number of the former. They arouse their passions and stimulate their appetites, and then lead them in a way they know not. A barrel of whisky, or even of hard cider, with a "hurrah!" will control ten to one more of this class of voters than will the soundest arguments of enlightened and honorable statesmen. And yet one of these votes thus procured, when deposited in the ballot-box, counts the same as the vote of a Washington or a Franklin!
There is one remedy, and but one, for this alarming state of things, which prevails to a less or greater extent in almost every community. That remedy is simple. It consists in the establishment of schools for the education of the whole people. These schools, however, should be of a more perfect character than the majority of those which have hitherto existed. In them the principles of morality should be copiously intermingled with the principles of science. Cases of conscience should alternate with lessons in the rudiments. The rule requiring us to do to others as we would that they should do unto us, should be made as familiar as the multiplication table, and our youth should become as familiar with the practical application of the one as of the other. The lives of great and good men should be held up for admiration and example, and especially the life and character of Jesus Christ, as the sublimest pattern of benevolence, of purity, and of self-sacrifice ever exhibited to mortals. In every course of studies, all the practical and preceptive parts of the Gospel should be sacredly inculcated, and all dogmatical theology and sectarianism sacredly excluded. In no school should the Bible be opened to reveal the sword of the polemic, but to unloose the dove of peace.
In connection with the preceding, and in addition to the branches now commonly taught in our schools, the study of politics, which has been beautifully defined as the art of making a people happy, should be generally introduced. "I am not aware," says an eminent jurist,[57] "that there are any solid objections which can be urged against introducing the science of government into our common schools as a branch of popular education. If it should be said that it will have a tendency to introduce party creeds and party dogmas into our schools, the true answer is, that the principles of government should be there taught, and not the creeds or dogmas of any party. The principles of the Constitution under which we live; the principles upon which republics generally are founded, by which they are sustained, and through which they must be saved; the principles of public policy, by which national prosperity is secured, and national ruin averted—these certainly are not party creeds or party dogmas, but are fit to be taught at all times and on all occasions, if any thing which belongs to human life and our own condition is fit to be taught. If we wait until we can guard ourselves against every possible chance of abuse before we introduce any system of instruction, we shall wait until the current of time has flowed into the ocean of eternity. There is nothing which ever has been or ever can be taught without some chance of abuse; nay, without some absolute abuse. Even religion itself, our truest and our only lasting hope and consolation, has not escaped the common infirmity of our nature. If it never had been taught until it could be taught with the purity, simplicity, and energy of the apostolic age, we ourselves, instead of being blessed with the bright and balmy influences of Christianity, should now have been groping our way in the darkness of heathenism, or left to perish in the cold and cheerless labyrinths of skepticism."
Lord Brougham, one of the most powerful advocates of popular education in our day, has made the following remarks, which can not be more fitly addressed to any people than to the citizens of the American States. "A sound system of government," says this transatlantic writer, "requires the people to read and inform themselves upon political subjects; else they are the prey of every quack, every impostor, and every agitator who may practice his trade in the country. If they do not read; if they do not learn; if they do not digest by discussion and reflection what they have read and learned; if they do not qualify themselves to form opinions for themselves, other men will form opinions for them, not according to the truth and the interests of the people, but according to their own individual and selfish interest, which may, and most probably will, be contrary to that of the people at large."
Two very important inquiries here naturally suggest themselves to us: they are, first, whether there is at present in this country a degree of intelligence sufficient for the wise administration of its affairs; and secondly, whether existing provisions for the education of our country's youth are adequate to the wants of a great and free people, who are endeavoring to demonstrate to the world that great problem of nations—the capability of man for self-government. We judge of the literary attainments of the citizens of a state or of a nation, as a whole, by comparing all the individual members thereof with a given standard, and of their arrangements for educating the rising generation by the character of their schools, and the proportion of the population that receive instruction in them. Let us test the existing standard of education in various states of this Union in both of these respects.
Degree of popular Intelligence.—According to the census of 1840,[58] the total population of the United States was, in round numbers, seventeen millions. Of this number, five hundred and fifty thousand were whites over twenty years of age, who could not read and write. The proportion varies in different states, from one in five hundred and eighty-nine in Connecticut, to one in eleven in North Carolina.
If we exclude, in the estimate, all colored persons, and whites under twenty years of age, the proportion will stand thus: in the United States, one to every twelve is unable to read and write. The proportion varies in the different states, from one in two hundred and ninety-four in Connecticut, which stands the highest, to one in three in North Carolina, which stands the lowest. In Tennessee the proportion is one in four. In Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas, each, one in five. In Delaware and Alabama, each, one in six. In Indiana, one in seven. In Illinois and Wisconsin, each, one in eight.
On the brighter end of the scale, next to Connecticut, in which the proportion is one in two hundred and ninety-four, is New Hampshire, in which the proportion is one in one hundred and fifty-nine. In Massachusetts it is one in ninety. In Maine, one in seventy-two. In Vermont, one in sixty-three. Next in order comes Michigan, in which the proportion is one in thirty-nine.[59]
But these statements in relation to the number of persons in the United States who are unable to read and write, although they give the fearful aggregate of five hundred and fifty thousand over twenty years of age who are destitute of these qualifications, it is believed, fail to discover much of gross ignorance that is cherished in various portions of the country; for there is no state in the Union, nor any section of a single state, where men do not wish to be accounted able to read and write. The deputy marshals who took the census received their compensation by the head, and not by the day, for the work done. They therefore traveled from house to house, making the shortest practicable stay at each. More was required of them than could be thoroughly and accurately performed in the time allowed. Their informants were subjected to no test. In the absence of the heads of families, whose information would have been more reliable, the bare word of persons over sixteen years of age was accredited. It is, moreover, well known, that no inconsiderable number of persons gave false information when inquired of by the deputies. From these and other reasons, it is believed that numerous and important errors exist in the census; and this opinion is corroborated by a mass of unquestionable testimony, of which I will introduce a specimen.
The annual message of Governor Campbell, of Virginia, to the Legislature of that state, the year immediately preceding that in which the census was taken, clearly shows that the capacity to read and write in persons over twenty years of age was greatly over-estimated in that state. Governor Campbell, after stating that the importance of an efficient system of education, embracing in its comprehensive and benevolent design the whole people, can not be too frequently recurred to, goes on to remark as follows: