I would recommend that each state should raise a school fund sufficient for the entire support of the schools; that a suitable school-house and apparatus, with a convenient dwelling-house for the teacher, be furnished by the state for each district; and that every school-house be supplied with a well-qualified teacher, who shall receive from the state a suitable compensation.—John Duer.
Let there be an educational department of the government, and let its details be managed by proper officers, accountable to the representatives of the people.—Dr. Hawks.
We have already considered the nature of education, which has reference to the whole man and to the whole duration of his being. We have seen its importance to individuals and families, to neighborhoods and communities, to states and nations, and that in proportion as it receives attention in any community, will that community become prosperous and happy. We may then very properly inquire after the means to be put in requisition in order to render the blessings of education universal among us. To the consideration of this subject we shall devote the remainder of this work. My first remark is, that
A correct public opinion should be formed. In the language of Bishop Potter, "Our people have absolutely the control over the whole subject of education, not only as it respects their own families, but, to a great extent, in schools and seminaries of learning. If, then, the people were fully awake to its importance and true nature, we should soon have a perfect system, and we should witness results from it for which we now look in vain."
The formation of a correct public opinion is of the utmost importance, for the primary cause of all the defects complained of in education, and the source of all the evils that afflict the community in consequence of its neglect, is popular indifference. From this we have more to fear than from all other causes combined. Opposition elicits discussion; and discussion, judiciously conducted, evolves truth; and educational truths brought clearly before the mind of any community will ultimately induce right action. Men may at first be influenced by a comparatively low class of motives, but one which they can appreciate. As they witness the beneficial effects of reform, their motives will gradually become more elevated, and their efforts at improvement more constant; but no important advance can be made without popular enlightenment.
When the majority of the individuals that compose any community come to value education as they ought; when they duly estimate its importance in the various points of view already considered, then will their public servants take more pains to co-operate with them in rendering its blessings universal. Good laws are important as a means of improving our systems of public instruction; but good laws, unsustained by a correct public opinion, will be of no avail. Before any considerable advance can be made either in improving our schools or in causing the attendance upon them to become more general, a good common education—one that shall give us sound minds in sound bodies; one that bestows much attention upon intellectual culture, but more upon the culture of the heart—must come to be ranked among the necessaries of life.
Conventions of the friends of education have already done much to correct popular errors in relation to this subject, and have contributed largely to the formation of sound and rational views in relation to its importance in the communities where they have been held. In many instances, however, they have been composed too exclusively of teachers. These should, indeed, be in attendance; but to increase the usefulness of such conventions, and heighten the effect they may be made to produce upon the popular mind, there should also be in attendance members of the several learned professions, statesmen, capitalists, and all the leading minds of the communities in which they are held. In some portions of the country this is now the case, but such instances, I regret to say, are not yet very common among us.
Fourth of July common school celebrations have, within the past few years, become quite common in several states of the Union. This seems peculiarly appropriate, being a practical recognition of the importance of primary schools and universal education in a civil and political point of view. One of the most befitting celebrations of this day which I have ever known was held in Boston eight years ago, when an oration was delivered before the authorities of that city by the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. The theme of the orator was the importance of national or universal education in a free government as the interest which underlies all others, and as constituting the only means of perfecting and perpetuating to the latest generations the institutions we have received from our fathers, and "a demonstration that our existing means for the promotion of intelligence and virtue are wholly inadequate to the support of a republican government." Such celebrations should be held in every state of this Union, at every recurring anniversary of our national independence, until there can not be found a single individual in all our borders who does not know both his duties and his privileges as a freeman, and who has not virtue enough faithfully to perform the one and temperately to enjoy the other. This, indeed, seems to be in keeping with that most impressive passage of the celebrated Ordinance of the American Congress, adopted July 13th, 1787, which says, "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
The twenty-second of February has also been observed, to some extent, in several of the states, by holding such celebrations. Nothing can be more appropriate than these efforts to arouse the popular mind to renewed efforts to improve the common schools of the land, when we consider the import of that portion of the Farewell Address of him, the anniversary of whose birth we celebrate, which relates to popular education. "Promote, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge." There can be no doubt that Washington here refers to the maintenance and improvement of common schools as the means of universal education.
The necessity of improving our common schools and of opening wide their doors to all our youth should not only be the theme at school celebrations, at educational conventions, and on the occasion of our national anniversaries, but it should be frequently presented by the civilian and the divine, as well as by the legislator and the journalist, until men generally well understand the importance of education, and are willing to make any sacrifices that may be necessary to secure its advantages to their own children not only, but to all our youth.