No. II.
My own observation, and the opinions of others, induce me to believe, that generally speaking, less attention is given to education among the farmers of Pennsylvania than was the case half a century ago. At any rate, the opportunity for instruction within the last fifty years, has not kept pace with the increased ability to furnish it.
Land has appreciated, and the productions of the soil have yielded great profits to the husbandman; but the intellectual harvest has been of little account. The habits and manners of each successive generation, display the avidity with which foreign customs and fashions are embraced by the yeomanry of the country, but these outside evidences of what is called refinement, have added nothing to the stock of our mental resources, and greatness. My purpose however, is to suggest plans of improvement, rather than to find fault with existing errors, for I am convinced that if a liberal and judicious system be adopted for enlarging the minds of our youth, and storing them with sound principles, the follies, (perhaps the vices,) which now so much engross their attention, disfigure their character, and mar their usefulness, would be ultimately corrected. Scholastic learning alone will not, I am fully satisfied, mend the heart, or sanctify the understanding; but I am equally sure, that ignorance as a quality, never contributed to render the mind over which it held a dark and dreary reign, in a greater degree susceptible of those benign views, and exalted aims, which give to the accountable being, a just conception of the design of his Creator.
If my opinion be worth any thing, of which you must be the judges, I would recommend the establishment of schools in every neighbourhood; but upon a very different foundation from that which generally obtains. Instead of an itinerant schoolmaster, who goes forth in the latter part of autumn in search of subsistence through the winter months, often without qualifications for the task he solicits, and not unfrequently of equivocal moral reputation, select a teacher estimable for his private virtues as a man, and respectable for his literary and scientific acquirements; remunerate him with a liberal salary; erect a suitable and comfortable building for the accommodation of the school: supply it with maps, globes, &c., and commence a library of useful books. Send your children regularly to school throughout the year, and thus make their education as much a business, and duty, as the cultivation of your farms. Short of this, will not fulfil the obligations which every parent owes to his offspring. We are social beings, and our prosperity and happiness depend primarily upon ourselves, and secondarily upon others; so that we are advancing our own interests and comforts, when we promote that of those by whom we are surrounded. In every neighbourhood in the country there are a few individuals whose pecuniary means will not permit them to defray the expenses of education, which the more wealthy can afford, and the condition of the indigent has been seriously affected in this respect, by the institution of boarding schools. To those seminaries, the children of the affluent are sent; the common schools are consequently neglected; the poor go uninstructed, and a wide, and fatal distinction is thus created, among the inhabitants of the same vicinage. Rather, fellow citizens, than perpetuate this sort of classification in society, direct your attention to the formation of good schools at home, to which every child may be admitted; where all may partake of the same common benefits and blessings. You will thus place all on a par in the advantages of instruction, create in the minds of all, the same respect for those moral obligations which hold the community together in the bond of safety and peace, and confer upon your offspring the most solid security.
A youth, the son of one who is competent to defray the expense of his education at a boarding school, or college, is sent from home at the age of sixteen; is absent three or four years; has formed new associations, and contracted new notions; he returns to his birth-place; he has outgrown the recollections, and intimacies of his childhood; he feels a sort of elevation above the children of his neighbourhood, who have been groping in ignorance during his absence; he stands aloof; jealousy takes hold on the minds of those who observe this difference, and every evil passion begins its operation; the consequences are as sad, as they are certain.
Contemplate the reverse of the picture. Behold the youth of adjoining farms for several miles in circumference, collected together in one school; pursuing the same studies; partaking of the same general care, in a moral and religious point of view, which every conscientious teacher will find it his pleasure to extend toward his pupils; participating in the same innocent recreations; growing up together with similar views of private duty, and public obligation; witness such an instance as this, and you may be assured that from hence will proceed much which will dignify and adorn the locality, where it is found to exist.
As these reflections have occurred to me, I have taken the freedom of presenting them to your consideration. I am influenced by no other motive than that which would induce me to be the humblest agent in promoting the true interests of our country, and enlarging, if it were in my power, the circle of human happiness.
Civis.
FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.