America has nothing to fear from any foreign foe; for nearly forty years she has had no quarrel but of her own making. Such is our enterprise and our strength, that few nations would, carelessly, engage in war with us; none, without great provocation. In the midst of us, is our danger; not in foreign arms, but in the ignorance and the wickedness of our own children, the ignorance of the many, the wickedness of the few who will lead the many to their ruin. The bulwark of America is not the army and navy of the United States, with all the men at public cost instructed in the art of war; it is not the swords and muskets idly bristling in our armories; it is not the cannon and the powder carefully laid by; no, nor is it yet the forts, which frown in all their grim barbarity of stone along the coast, defacing the landscape, else so fair: these might all be destroyed to-night, and the nation be as safe as now. The more effectual bulwark of America is her schools. The cheap spelling-book, or the vane on her school-house is a better symbol of the nation than "The star-spangled banner;" the printing press does more than the cannon; the press is mightier than the sword. The army that is to keep our liberties—you are part of that, the noble army of teachers. It is you, who are to make a great nation greater, even wise and good,—the next generation better than their sires.
Europe shows us, by experiment, that a republic cannot be made by a few well-minded men, however well-meaning. They tried for it at Rome, full of enlightened priests; in Germany, the paradise of the scholar, but there was not a people well educated, and a democracy could not stand upright long enough to be set a-going. In France, where men are better fitted for the experiment than elsewhere in continental Europe, you see what comes of it—the first step is a stumble, and for their president, the raw republicans chose an autocrat, not a democrat; not a mere soldier, but only the name of a soldier; one that thinks it an insult if liberty, equality, and fraternity be but named!
Think you a democracy can stand without the education of all; not barely the smallest pittance thereof which will keep a live soul in a live body, but a large, generous cultivation of mind and conscience, heart and soul? A man, with half an eye, can see how we suffer continually in politics for lack of education among the people. Some nations are priest-ridden, some king-ridden, some ridden of nobles; America is ridden by politicians, a heavy burden for a foolish neck.
Our industrial interests demand the same education. The industrial prosperity of the North, our lands yearly enriching, while they bear their annual crop; our railroads, mills and machines, the harness with which we tackle the elements,—for we domesticate fire and water, yes, the very lightning of heaven—all these are but material results of the intelligence of the people. Our political success and our industrial prosperity, both come from the pains taken with the education of the people. Halve this education, and you take away three fourths of our political welfare, three fourths of our industrial prosperity; double this education, you greaten the political welfare of the people, you increase their industrial success fourfold. Yes, more than that, for the results of education increase by a ratio of much higher powers.
It seems strange that so few of the great men in politics have cared much for the education of the people; only one of those, now prominent before the North, is intimately connected with it. He, at great personal sacrifice of money, of comfort, of health, even of respectability, became superintendent of the common schools of Massachusetts, a place whence we could ill spare him, to take the place of the famous man he succeeds. Few of the prominent scholars of the land interest themselves in the public education of the people. The men of superior culture think the common school beneath their notice; but it is the mother of them all.
None of the States of the North has ever given this matter the attention it demands. When we legislate about public education, this is the question before us:—Shall we give our posterity the greatest blessing that one generation can bestow upon another? Shall we give them a personal power which will create wealth in every form, multiply ships, and roads of earth, or of iron; subdue the forest, till the field, chain the rivers, hold the winds as its vassals, bind with an iron yoke the fire and water, and catch and tame the lightning of God? Shall we give them a personal power which will make them sober, temperate, healthy, and wise; that shall keep them at peace, abroad and at home, organize them so wisely that all shall be united, and yet, each left free, with no tyranny of the few over the many, or the little over the great? Shall we enable them to keep, to improve, to double manifold the political, social, and personal blessings they now possess; shall we give them this power to create riches, to promote order, peace, happiness—all forms of human welfare, or shall we not? That is the question. Give us intelligent men, moral men, men well developed in mind and conscience, heart and soul, men that love man and God, industrial prosperity, social prosperity, and political prosperity, are sure to follow. But without such men, all the machinery of this threefold prosperity is but a bauble in a child's hand, which he will soon break or lose, which he cannot replace when gone, nor use while kept.
Rich men, who have intelligence and goodness, will educate their children, at whatever cost. There are some men, even poor men's sons, born with such native power that they will achieve an education, often a most masterly culture; men whom no poverty can degrade, or make vulgar, whom no lack of means of culture can keep from being wise and great. Such are exceptional men; the majority, nine tenths of the people, will depend, for their culture, on the public institutions of the land. If there had never been a free public school in New England, not half of her mechanics and farmers would now be able to read, not a fourth part of her women. I need not stop to tell what would be the condition of her agriculture, her manufactures, her commerce; they would have been, perhaps, even behind the agriculture, commerce and manufactures of South Carolina. I need not ask what would be the condition of her free churches, or the republican institutions which now beautify her rugged shores and sterile soil; there would be no such churches, no such institutions. If there had been no such schools in New England, the Revolution would yet remain to be fought. Take away the free schools, you take away the cause of our manifold prosperity; double their efficiency and value, you not only double and quadruple the prosperity of the people, but you will enlarge their welfare—political, social, personal—far more than I now dare to calculate. I know men object to public schools; they say, education must be bottomed on religion, and that cannot be taught unless we have a State religion, taught "by authority" in all our schools; we cannot teach religion, without teaching it in a sectarian form. This objection is getting made in New York; we have got beyond it in New England. It is true, all manly education must be bottomed on religion; it is essential to the normal development of man, and all attempts at education, without this, must fail of the highest end. But there are two parts of religion which can be taught in all the schools, without disturbing the denominations, or trenching upon their ground, namely, piety, the love of God, and goodness, the love of man. The rest of religion, after piety and goodness are removed, may safely be left to the institutions of any of the sects, and so the state will not occupy their ground.
It is often said that superior education is not much needed; the common schools are enough, and good enough, for it is thought that superior education is needed for men as lawyers, ministers, doctors, and the like, not for men as men. It is not so. We want men cultivated with the best discipline, everywhere, not for the profession's sake, but for man's sake. Every man with a superior culture, intellectual, moral, and religious, every woman thus developed, is a safeguard and a blessing. He may sit on the bench of a judge or a shoemaker, be a clergyman or an oysterman, that matters little, he is still a safeguard and a blessing. The idea that none should have a superior education but professional men—they only for the profession's sake—belongs to dark ages, and is unworthy of a democracy.
It is the duty of all men to watch over the public education of the people, for it is the most important work of the state. It is particularly the duty of men who, hitherto, have least attended to it, men of the highest culture, men, too, of the highest genius. If a man with but common abilities has attained great learning, he is one of the "public administrators," to distribute the goods of men of genius, from other times and lands, to mankind, their legal heirs. Why does God sometimes endow a man with great intellectual power, making, now and then, a million-minded man? Is that superiority of gift solely for the man's own sake? Shame on such a thought. It is of little value to him unless he use it for me; it is for your sake and my sake, more than for his own. He is a precious almoner of wisdom; one of the public guardians of mankind, to think for us, to help us think for ourselves; born to educate the world of feebler men. I call on such men, men of culture, men of genius, to help build up institutions for the education of the people. If they neglect this, they are false to their trust. The culture which hinders a man from sympathy with the ignorant, is a curse to both, and the genius which separates a man from his fellow-creatures, lowlier born than he, is the genius of a demon.