LC 
 
 P3 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 17 7DT 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
uf 
 
 AN 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DKLIVERED BEFQRK 
 
 THE ONONDAGA TEACHERS' INSTITUTE, 
 
 AT SYRACUSE, N. Y., 
 
 On the 4th of October, 1845. 
 
 BY T H E D O R K P A R K K R 
 
 F U B L I S H K D BY R E Q TJ K S T . 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WM . C I? 6 S B V 6c II . P . N I II O L 5 , 
 111 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1850. 
 
, (.) i 1 /../I 
 
|faklic f tottim nf tip 
 
 AN 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE ONONDAGA TEACHEKS' INSTITUTE, 
 
 AT SYRACUSE, N. Y., 
 
 On the 4th of October, 1845. 
 
 BY THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WM. CROSBY & H.P. NICHOLS, 
 
 111 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1850. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 
 
 THEODORE PARKER, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 Coolidge * Wiley, Printers, No.12, Water St. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 EDUCATION is the developing and furnishing of the 
 faculties of man. To educate the people is one of 
 the functions of the State. It is generally allowed 
 in the free States of America, that the community 
 owes each child born into it a chance for educa- 
 tion, intellectual, moral and religious. Hence the 
 child has a just and recognized claim on the commu- 
 nity for the means of this education, which is to be 
 afforded him, not as a charity, but as a right. 
 
 This fact indicates the progress mankind has 
 made in not many years. Once the State only 
 took charge of the Military education of the peo- 
 ple ; not at all of their intellectual, moral or relig- 
 ious culture. They received their military disci- 
 pline, not for the special and personal advantage of 
 the individuals, Thomas and Oliver, but for the 
 benefit of the State. They received it not because 
 they were men, claiming it in virtue of their man- 
 hood, but as subjects of the State, because their 
 military training was needful for the State, or for 
 its rulers who took the name thereof. Then the 
 only culture which the community took public 
 
pains to bestow on its members was training them 
 to destroy. The Few, destined to command, 
 learned the Science of destruction, and the kindred 
 Science of defence ; the Many, doomed to obey, 
 learned only the Art to destroy, and the kindred Art 
 of defence. 
 
 The ablest men of the nation were sought out 
 for military teachers, giving practical lessons of the 
 Science and the Art ; they were covered with hon- 
 or and loaded with gold. The wealth of the peo- 
 ple and their highest science went to this work. 
 Institutions were founded to promote this education, 
 and carefully watched over by the State, for it was 
 thought the Commonwealth depended on disci- 
 plined valor. The soldier was thought to be the 
 type of the State, the archetype of man, according- 
 ly the highest spiritual function of the State was 
 the production of soldiers. 
 
 Most of the civilized nations have past through 
 that stage of their development: though the few or the 
 many are still taught the Science or the Art of war 
 in all countries called Christian, there is yet a class 
 of men for whom the State furnishes the means of 
 education that is not military ; means of education 
 which the individuals of that class could not pro- 
 vide for themselves. This provision is made at the 
 cost of the State ; that is, at the cost of every man 
 in the State, for what the public pays, you pay and 
 I pay, rich or poor, willingly and consciously or oth- 
 erwise. This class of men is different in different 
 
countries, and the education is modified to suit the 
 form of government, and the Idea of the State. 
 In Rome the State provides for the public edu- 
 cation of PRIESTS. Rome is an ecclesiastical 
 State ; her government is a Theocracy a govern- 
 ment of all the people, but by the Priests, for the 
 sake of the Priests, and in the name of God. 
 Place in the Church is power, bringing honor and 
 wealth ; no place out of the Church is of much val- 
 ue. The offices are filled by Priests, the chief mag- 
 istrate is a Priest, supposed to derive his power and 
 right to rule, not democratically, from the People, 
 or royally, by inheritance ; for in theory the Priest 
 is as if he had no father, as theoretically he has no 
 child, but theocratically from God. 
 
 In Rome the Priesthood is thought to be the 
 flower of the State ; the most important spiritual 
 function of the State, therefore, is the production 
 of Priests ; accordingly the greatest pains are taken 
 with their education. Institutions are founded at 
 the public cost, to make Priests out of men ; these 
 institutions are the favorites of government, well 
 ordered, well watched over, well attended, and 
 richly honored. Institutions for the education of 
 the People are of small account, ill-endowed, watch- 
 ed over but poorly, thinly attended, and not honored 
 at all. The People are designed to be Subjects of 
 the Church, and as little culture is needed for that, 
 though much to make them Citizens thereof, so lit- 
 tle is given. 
 
 As there are institutions for the education of the 
 
Priests, so there is a class of men devoted to that 
 work; able men, well disciplined, sometimes men 
 born with genius, and always men furnished with 
 the accomplishments of sacerdotal and scientific art; 
 very able men, very well disciplined, the most 
 learned and accomplished men in the land. These 
 men are well paid and abundantly honored, for on 
 their faithfulness the power of the Priesthood, and 
 so the welfare of the State, is thought to depend. 
 Without the allurement of wealth and honors 
 these able men would not come to this work ; and 
 without the help of their ability the Priests could 
 not be well educated. Hence their power would 
 decline ; the class, tonsured and consecrated but 
 not instructed, would fall into contempt ; the The- 
 ocracy would end. So the educators of the Priests 
 are held in honor, surrounded by baits for vulgar 
 eyes ; but the public educators of the People, 
 chiefly women or ignorant men, are held in small 
 esteem. The very buildings destined to the educa- 
 tion of the Priests are conspicuous and stately; 
 the Colleges of the Jesuits, the Propaganda, the 
 Seminaries for the education of Priests, the Monas- 
 teries for training the more wealthy and regular 
 clergy, are great establishments, provided with li- 
 braries, and furnished with all the apparatus need- 
 ed for their important work. But the School- 
 houses for the People are small and mean build- 
 ings, ill made, ill furnished, and designed for a 
 work thought to be of little moment. All this is in 
 strict harmony with the idea of the Theocracy, 
 
where the Priesthood is mighty and the people are 
 subjects of the Church, where the effort of the State 
 is toward producing a Priest. 
 
 In England the State takes charge of the educa- 
 tion of another class, the Nobility and Gentry ; that 
 is, of young men of ancient and historical families, 
 the Nobility, and young men of fortune, the Gen- 
 try. England is an oligarchical State ; her govern- 
 ment an Aristocracy, the government of all, by a 
 few, the Nobility and Gentry, for the sake of a few, 
 and in the name of a King. There the foundation 
 of power is wealth and birth from a noble family. 
 The union of both takes place in the wealthy no- 
 ble. There, Nobility is the blossom of the State ; 
 aristocratic birth brings wealth, office, and their con- 
 sequent social distinction. Political offices are 
 chiefly monopolized by men of famous birth or 
 great riches. The King, the chief officer of the 
 land must surpass all others in wealth, and the 
 pomp and circumstance which comes thereof, 
 and in aristocracy of birth. He is not merely no- 
 ble but royal ; his right to rule is not at all derived 
 from the People, but from his birth. Thus he has 
 the two essentials of aristocratic influence, birth 
 and wealth, not merely in the heroic degree, but in 
 the supreme degree. 
 
 As the State is an Aristocracy, its most important 
 spiritual function is the production of Aristocrats ; 
 each noble family transmits the full power of its 
 blood only to a single person the oldest son ; of 
 
the highest form, the royal, only one is supposed 
 to be born in a generation, only one who receives 
 and transmits in full the blood royal. 
 
 As the Nobility are the blossom of the State, 
 great pains must be taken with the education of 
 those persons born of patrician or wealthy families. 
 As England is not merely a military or ecclesias- 
 tical State, though partaking largely of both, but 
 commercial, agricultural and productive in many 
 ways ; as she holds a very prominent place in the 
 politics of the world, so there must be a good gen- 
 eral education provided for these persons ; other- 
 wise their power would decline, the Nobility and 
 Gentry sink into contempt and the government pass 
 into other hands, for though a man may be born to 
 rank and wealth, he is not born to knowledge, nor 
 to practical skill. Hence institutions are founded 
 for the education of the aristocratic class : Oxford 
 and Cambridge, " those twins of learning," with 
 their preparatories and help-meets. 
 
 The design of these institutions is to educate the 
 young men of family and fortune. The aim in 
 their academic culture is not as in pagan Rome, a 
 military State, to make Soldiers, nor as in Christian 
 Rome to turn out Priests ; it is not as in the Ger- 
 man universities, to furnish the world with Schol- 
 ars and Philosophers, men of letters and science, 
 but to mature and furnish the GENTLEMAN, in the 
 technical sense of that word, a person convention- 
 ally fitted to do the work of a complicated aristo- 
 cratic State, to fill with honor its various offices, 
 
9 
 
 military, political, ecclesiastical or social, and enjoy 
 the dignity which comes thereof. These institu- 
 tions furnish the individual who resorts thither 
 with opportunities not otherwise to be had ; they 
 are purchased at the cost of the State, at the cost 
 of each man in the State. The Alumnus at Ox- 
 ford pays his term-bills, indeed, but the amount 
 thereof is a trifle compared to the actual cost of 
 his residence there ; mankind pays the residue. 
 
 These institutions are continually watched over 
 by the State, which is the official guardian of aris- 
 tocratic education ; they are occasionally assisted 
 by grants from the public treasury, though they 
 are chiefly endowed by the voluntary gifts of indi- 
 vidual men. But these private gifts, like the pub- 
 lic grants, corne from the earnings of the whole 
 nation. 
 
 These institutions are well endowed, superin- 
 tended well, and richly honored; their Chancel- 
 lors and Vice-chancellors are men of distinguished 
 social rank; they have their Representatives in 
 Parliament ; able men are sought out for Teachers, 
 Professors, Heads of Houses ; men of good ability, 
 of masterly education, and the accomplishments 
 of a finished gentleman. They are well paid, 
 and copiously rewarded with honors and social 
 distinction. Gentility favors these institutions; 
 Nobility watches over them, and Royalty smiles 
 upon them. In this threefold sunlight, no wonder 
 that they thrive. The buildings at their service are 
 among the most costly and elegant in the land ; 
 
10 
 
 large museums are attached to them, and immense 
 libraries ; every printer in England, at his own cost, 
 must give a copy of each book he publishes to 
 Cambridge and Oxford. What wealth can buy, 
 or artistic genius can create, is here devoted to the 
 culture of this powerful class. 
 
 But while the Nobility and Gentry are reckoned 
 the flower of the State, the common People are 
 only the leaves, and therefore thought of small 
 importance in the political botany of the nation. 
 Their education is amazingly neglected; is mainly 
 left to the accidental piety of private Christians, to 
 the transient charity of philanthropic men, or the 
 " enlightened self-interest " of mechanics and small 
 traders, who now and then found institutions for 
 the education of some small fraction of the mul- 
 titude. But such institutions are little favored by 
 the government, or the spirit of the dominant class ; 
 Gentility does not frequent them, nor Nobility help 
 them, nor Royalty watch over to foster and to bless. 
 The Parliament which voted one hundred thou- 
 sand pounds of the nation's money for the queen's 
 horses and hounds, had but thirty thousand to spare 
 for the education of her People. No honor attends 
 the educators of the People ; no wealth is heaped 
 up for them ; no beautiful buildings are erected for 
 their use ; no great libraries got ready at the public 
 charge; no costly buildings are provided. You 
 wonder at the colleges and collegiate churches 
 of Oxford and of Cambridge ; at the magnificence 
 of public edifices in London, new or ancient 
 
11 
 
 the House of Parliament, the Bank, the palaces 
 of royal and noble men, the splendor of the 
 churches but you ask, Where are the school- 
 houses for the People? You go to Bridewell and 
 Newgate for the answer. All this is consistent 
 with the idea of an Aristocracy. The Gentleman 
 is the type of the State ; and the effort of the State 
 is towards producing him. The People require 
 only education enough to become the servants of 
 the Gentleman, and seem not to be valued for their 
 own sake, but only as they furnish pabulum for 
 the flower of 1he Oligarchy. 
 
 In Rome and England, great sums have been 
 given by wealthy men and by the State itself to 
 furnish the means of a theocratic or aristocratic ed- 
 ucation to a certain class ; and to produce the nation- 
 al priests, and the national gentlemen ; there pub- 
 lic education is the privilege of a few, but bought 
 at the cost of the many ; for the plough-boy in 
 Yorkshire, who has not culture enough to read the 
 petition for daily bread in the Lord's Prayer, helps 
 pay the salary of the Master of Trinity, and the 
 swine-herd in the Roman Campagna, who knows 
 nothing of religion, except what he learns at Christ- 
 mas and Easter, by seeing the Pope carried on 
 men's shoulders into St. Peter's, helps support the 
 Propaganda and the Roman College. The privi- 
 leged classes are to receive an education under the 
 eye of the State which considers itself bound to 
 furnish them the means of a public education, 
 partly at the individual's cost, chiefly at the cost of 
 
12 
 
 the public. The amount of education depends on 
 three things : on the educational attainments of 
 the Human Race ; on the wealth and tranquillity of 
 the special nation, enabling it to avail itself of that 
 general attainment, and on the natural powers and 
 industry of the particular individual in the nation. 
 Such is the solidarity of mankind that the develop- 
 ment of the individual thus depends on that of the 
 race, and the education of a priest in Rome or a 
 gentleman in England is the resultant of these 
 three forces, the attainment of mankind, the 
 power of the nation, and the private character and 
 conduct of the man himself Each of these three 
 is a variable and not a constant quantity. So the 
 amount of education which a man can receive at 
 Oxford or at Rome fluctuates and depends on the 
 state of the nation and the world ; but as the at- 
 tainments of mankind have much increased with- 
 in a few years, so the wealth of England has in- 
 creased, and her tranquillity become more secure, 
 you see how easy it becomes for the State to offer 
 each gentleman an amount of education which it 
 would have been quite impossible to furnish in the 
 time of the Yorks and the Lancasters. 
 
 In America things are quite other and different. 
 I speak of the Free States of the North ; the Slave 
 States have the worst features of an Oligarchy com- 
 bined with a theocratic pride of caste, which gen- 
 erates continual un-kindness; there the Idea of the 
 State is found inconsistent with the general and 
 
13 
 
 public education of the People ; it is as much so 
 in South Carolina as in England or Rome; yes, 
 more so, for the public and general culture of all 
 is only dangerous to a Theocracy or Aristocracy while 
 it is directly fatal to Slavery. In England, and still 
 more in Catholic Rome, the churches themselves 
 a wonderful museum of curiosities, and open all 
 the day to all persons, form an independent ele- 
 ment for the education of the most neglected class. 
 But slavery and education of the people are in- 
 commensurable quantities. No amount of vio- 
 lence can be their common measure. The Repub- 
 lic, where master and slave were equally educated, 
 would soon be a red-republic. The slave-master 
 knows this, and accordingly puts education to the 
 ban, and glories in keeping three million barbari- 
 ans in the land, and of course, suffers the necessa- 
 ry degradation which comes thereof. But in the 
 Free States of the North the government is not a 
 Theocracy, or an Aristocracy ; the State, in theory, 
 is not for the few, nor even for the majority, but for 
 all ; classes are not recognized, and therefore not 
 protected in any privilege. The government is a 
 Democracy, the government of all, by all, for all, 
 and in the name of all. {\A man is born to all the 
 Rights of Mankind ; all are born to them, so all are 
 equal. ^Therefore, what the State pays for, not only 
 comes at the cost of all, but must be for the use 
 and benefit of all. Accordingly, as a Theocracy de- 
 mands the education of Priests, and an Aristocracy 
 that of the Nobility and the Gentry, so a Democra- 
 
14 
 
 cy demands the EDUCATION OF ALL. The aim must 
 be, not to make priests and gentlemen of a few, a 
 privileged class, but to make MEN of all; that is to 
 give a normal and healthy development of their 
 intellectual, moral, affectional and religious facul- 
 ties, to furnish and instruct them with the most im- 
 portant elementary knowledge, to extend this de- 
 velopment and furnishing of the faculties as far as 
 possible. 
 
 Institutions must be founded for this purpose 
 to educate all, rich and poor, men well-born, with 
 good abilities, men ill-born with slender natural 
 powers. In New England, these institutions have 
 long since been founded at the public cost, and 
 watched over with paternal care, as the Ark of our 
 Covenant, the Palladium of our nation. It has 
 been recognized as a theory, and practised on as a 
 fact, that all the property in the land is held by the 
 State for the public education of the People, as it 
 is for their defence; that property is amenable 
 to education as to military defence. 
 
 In a Democracy there are two reasons why this 
 theory and practice prevail. One is a Political rea- 
 son : it is for the advantage of the State ; for each 
 man that keeps out of the jail and the poor-house 
 becomes a voter at one and twenty, he may have 
 some office of trust and honor ; nay, the highest 
 office is open before him. As so much depends on 
 his voting wisely, he must have a chance to qualify 
 himself for his right of electing and of being 
 elected. It is as necessary now in a Democracy, 
 
15 
 
 and as much demanded by the Idea thereof, that 
 all should be thus qualified by education, as it once 
 was in a military state, that all should be bred up 
 soldiers. 
 
 The other is a Philosophical reason : it is for the 
 advantage of the individual himself, irrespective of 
 the State. The man is a Man ; an integer, arid the 
 State is for him, as well as a fraction of the State, 
 and he for it. He has a man's Rights; and, how- 
 ever inferior in Might to any other man, born of 
 parentage how humble soever, to no wealth at all, 
 with a body never so feeble, he is yet a man, and 
 so equal in rights to any other man born of a fa- 
 mous line, rich and able ; of course, he has a right 
 to a chance for the best culture which the educa- 
 tional attainment of mankind, and the circumstan- 
 ces of the nation render possible to any man ; to 
 so much thereof as he has the inborn power and 
 the voluntary industry to acquire. Even this con- 
 clusion is getting acted on in New England, and 
 there are schools for the dumb and the blind, even 
 for the idiot and the convict. 
 
 So then the Idea of our government demands 
 the education of all, the amount of education must 
 depend on the same three variables mentioned be- 
 fore ; it must be as good as it is possible for them 
 to afford. The Democratic State has never done 
 its political and educational duty until it affords ev- 
 ery man a chance to obtain the greatest amount of 
 education which the attainment of mankind ren- 
 ders it possible for the nation, in its actual circum- 
 
16 
 
 stances, to command, and the man's nature and 
 disposition render it possible for him to take. . 
 
 Looking at the matter politically, from the point 
 of view of the State, each man must have educa- 
 tion enough to exercise his rights of electing and 
 being elected. It is not easy to fix the limits of 
 the amount ; it is also a variable continually in- 
 creasing. Looking at the matter philosophically, 
 from the point of view of the individual, there is 
 no limit but the attainment of the race and the in- 
 dividual's capacity for development and growth. 
 Only a few men will master all, which the circum- 
 stances of the nation and the world render attain- 
 able; some will come short for lack of power, 
 others for lack of inclination : make education as 
 accessible as it can now be made, as attractive as 
 the teachers of this age can render it, the majority 
 will still get along with the smallest amount that 
 is possible or reputable. Only a few will strive 
 for the most they can get. There will be many a 
 thousand farmers, traders and mechanics^ in their 
 various callings, manual and intellectual, to a sin- 
 gle philosopher. This also is as it should be, and 
 corresponds with the nature of man and his func- 
 tion on the earth. Still all have the natural right 
 to the means of education to this extent, by fulfill- 
 ing its condition. 
 
 To accomplish this work, the democratic educa- 
 tion of the whole People, with the aim of making 
 them men, we want public institutions founded by 
 the People, paid for by the public money ; institu- 
 
17 
 
 tions well endowed, well attended, watched over 
 well, and proportionately honored ; we want teach- 
 ers, able men, well disciplined, well paid, and hon- 
 ored in proportion to their work. It is a good 
 thing to educate the privileged classes, priests in 
 a Theocracy, and gentlemen in an Aristocracy. 
 Though they are few in number it is a great 
 work; the servants thereof are not too well paid, 
 nor too much held in esteem in England nor in 
 Rome, nor too well furnished with apparatus. But 
 the public education of a whole People is a greater 
 work, far more difficult and should be attended 
 with corresponding honor, and watched over even 
 more carefully by the State. 
 
 After the grown men of any country have pro- 
 vided for their own physical wants, and ensured 
 the needful physical comforts, their most important 
 business is to educate themselves still further and 
 train up the rising generation to their own level. 
 It is important to leave behind us cultivated lands, 
 houses and shops, railroads and mills, but more 
 important to leave behind us men grown, men 
 that are men ; such are the seed of material wealth, 
 not it of them. The highest use of material 
 wealth is its educational function. 
 
 Now the attainments of the human race increase 
 with each generation ; the four leading nations of 
 Christendom, England, France, Germany, and the 
 United States, within a hundred years have appa- 
 rently, at the least doubled their spiritual attain- 
 ments; in the free States of America there is a 
 3 
 
18 
 
 constant and rapid increase of wealth, far beyond 
 the simultaneous increase of numbers, so not only 
 does the educational achievement of mankind be- 
 come greater each age, but the power of the State 
 to afford each man a better chance for a better 
 education, greatens continually, the educational abil- 
 ity of the State enlarging as those two factors get 
 augmented. The generation now grown up, is, 
 therefore, able and bound to get a better culture 
 than their fathers, and leave to their own children 
 a chance still greater. 
 
 Each child of genius in the nineteenth century, 
 is born at the foot of the ladder of learning as com- 
 pletely as the first child, with the same bodily and 
 spiritual nakedness ; though of the most civilized 
 race, with six, or sixty thousands of years behind 
 him, he must begin with nothing but himself. Yet 
 such is the union of all mankind, that with the aid 
 of the present generation, in a few years he will 
 learn all that mankind has learned in its long his- 
 tory, next go beyond that, discovering and cre- 
 ating anew, and then draw up to the same height 
 the new generation which will presently surpass 
 him. 
 
 A man's education never ends, but there are two 
 periods thereof quite dissimilar, the period of the 
 boy, and that of the man. Education in general 
 is the developing and instructing of the faculties, 
 and is, therefore, the same in kind to both man 
 and boy, though it may be brought about by dif- 
 
19 
 
 ferent forces ; the education of the boy, so far as it 
 depends on institutions and conscious modes of 
 action, must be so modified as to enable him to 
 meet the influences which will surround him when 
 he is a man, otherwise, his training will not ena- 
 ble him to cope with the new forces he meets, 
 and so will fail of the end of making him a man. 
 I pass over the influence of the Family and of 
 Nature, which do not belong to my present theme. 
 In America, the public education of men is chiefly 
 influenced by four great powers which I will call 
 Educational Forces, and which correspond to four 
 modes of national activity ; 
 
 I. The Political action of the People, represented 
 by the State ; 
 
 II. The Industrial action of the People, repre- 
 sented by Business ; 
 
 III. The Ecclesiastical action of the People, rep- 
 resented by the Church ; 
 
 IV. The Literary action of the People, represented 
 by the Press, 
 
 I now purposely name them in this order, though 
 I shall presently refer to them several times, and 
 in a different succession. These forces act on the 
 people, making us such men as we are ; they act 
 indirectly on the child before he comes to con- 
 sciousness, directly, afterwards, but most power- 
 fully on the man. What is commonly and tech- 
 nically called education the development and 
 instruction of the faculties of children, is only pre- 
 paratory, the scholastic education of the boy is but 
 
20 
 
 introductory to the practical education of the man. 
 It is only this preparatory education of the children 
 of the People that is the work of the schoolmasters. 
 Their business is to give the child such a develop- 
 ment of his faculties, and such furniture of prelim- 
 inary knowledge, that he can secure the influence 
 of all these educational forces, appreciating and en- 
 hancing the good, withstanding, counteracting and 
 at last ending the evil thereof, and so continue his 
 education, and at the same time that he can work 
 in one or more of those modes of activity, serving 
 himself and mankind, politically by the State, ec- 
 clesiastically by the Church, literarily by the Press, 
 or at any rate, industrially by his Business. To 
 give children the preparatory education necessary 
 for this fourfold receptivity, or activity, we need 
 three classes of public institutions : 
 I. Free Common Schools; 
 
 II Free High Schools ; 
 
 III Free Colleges. 
 
 Of these I will presently speak in detail, but 
 now for the sake of shortness let me call them all 
 collectively by their generic name the School. 
 It is plain the Teachers who work by this instru- 
 ment ought to understand the good and evil of the 
 four educational forces which work on men grown, 
 in order to prepare their pupils to receive the good 
 thereof, and withstand the evil. So then let us 
 look a moment at the character of these educa- 
 tional forces, and see what they offer us, and what 
 men they are likely to make of their unconscious 
 
21 
 
 pupils. Let us look at the good qualities first, and 
 next at the evil. 
 
 It is plain that Business, Politics and the Press, 
 all tend to promote a great activity of body and 
 mind. In Business, the love of gain, the enter- 
 prising spirit of our practical men in all depart- 
 ments, their industry, thrift and forecast, stimulate 
 men to great exertions, and produce a consequent 
 development of the faculties called out. Social 
 distinction depends almost wholly on wealth ; that 
 never is accumulated by mere manual industry, 
 such is the present constitution of society, but it 
 is acquired by the higher forms of industry, in 
 which the powers of Nature serve the man, or he 
 avails himself of the creations of mere manual toil. 
 Hence there is a constant pressure towards the 
 higher modes of industry for the sake of money ; 
 of course, a constant effort to be qualified for them. 
 So in the industrial departments the mind is more 
 active than the hand. Accordingly it has come to 
 pass that most of the brute labor of the Free States 
 is done by cattle, or by the forces of Nature wind, 
 water, fire which we have harnessed by our ma- 
 chinery, and set to work. In New England most 
 of the remaining work which requires little intelli- 
 gence is done by Irishmen, who are getting a bet- 
 ter culture by that very work. Men see the indus- 
 trial handiwork of the North, and wonder; they 
 do not always see the industrial head-work, which 
 precedes, directs and causes it all; they seldom 
 
22 
 
 see the complex forces of which this enterprise and 
 progress are the resultant. 
 
 There is no danger that we shall be sluggards. 
 Business now takes the same place in the educa- 
 tion of the People that was once held by War : it 
 stimulates activity, promotes the intercourse of man 
 with man, nation with nation ; assembling men in 
 masses, it elevates their temperature, so to say ; it 
 leads to new and better forms of organization ; it 
 excites men to invention, so that thereby we are 
 continually acquiring new power over the ele- 
 ments, peacefully annexing to our domain new 
 provinces of Nature water, wind, fire, lightning 
 setting them to do our work, multiplying the 
 comforts of life, and setting free a great amount of 
 human time. It is not at all destructive ; not 
 merely conservative, but continually creates anew. 
 Its creative agent is not brute force but educated 
 mind. A man's trade is always his teacher, and 
 industry keeps a College for mankind, much of our 
 instruction coming through our hands; with us, 
 where the plough is commonly in the hands of him 
 who owns the land it furrows, Business affords a 
 better education than in most other countries, and 
 develops higher qualities of mind. There is a 
 marked difference in this respect between the 
 North and South. There was never before such 
 industry, such intense activity of head and hand in 
 any nation in a time of peace. 
 
 The Press encourages the same activity, enter- 
 prise, perseverance. Both of these encourage gen- 
 
erosity ; neither honors the miser, who gets for the 
 sake of getting, or " starves, cheats, and pilfers to 
 enrich an heir ; " he does not die respectably in 
 Boston, who dies rich and bequeaths nothing to 
 any noble public charity. It encourages industry, 
 which accumulates with the usual honesty, and 
 for a rather generous use. 
 
 The Press furnishes us with books exceedingly 
 cheap. We manufacture literature cheaper than 
 any nation except the Chinese. Even the best 
 books, the works of the great masters of thought, 
 are within the reach of an industrious farmer or 
 mechanic if half a dozen families combine for 
 the purpose. The educational power of a few 
 good books scattered through a community, is 
 well known. 
 
 Then the Press circulates, cheap and wide, its 
 newspapers, emphatically the literature of men 
 who read nothing else ; they convey intelligence 
 from all parts of the world, and broaden the minds 
 of home-keeping youths, who need not now r have 
 homely wits. 
 
 The State, also, promotes activity, enterprise, 
 hardihood, perseverance and thrift. The American 
 government is eminently distinguished by these 
 five qualities. The form of government stimulates 
 patriotism, each man has a share in the public lot; 
 the Theocracies, Monarchies, and Aristocracies of 
 old time have produced good and great examples 
 of patriotism, in the few or the many. But the 
 nobler forms of love of country, of self-denial and 
 
disinterested zeal for its sake, are left for a Democ- 
 racy to bring to light. 
 
 Here all men are voters, and ail great questions 
 are, apparently and in theory, left to the decision 
 of the whole people. This popular fornf of gov- 
 ernment is a great instrument in developing and 
 instructing the mind of the nation. It helps ex- 
 tend and intensify the intelligent activity which 
 is excited by Business and the Press. Such is 
 the nature of our political institutions that, in the 
 Free States, we have produced the greatest degree 
 of national unity of action, with the smallest ex- 
 pense of personal freedom, have reconciled na- 
 tional unity with individual variety, not seeking 
 uniformity ; thus room is left for as much individ- 
 ualism as a man chooses to take ; a vast power of 
 talent, enterprise and invention is left free for its 
 own work. Elsewhere, save in England, this is 
 latent, kept down by government. Since this pow- 
 er is educated and has nothing to hold it back ; 
 since so much brute work is done by cattle and the 
 forces of Nature, now domesticated and put in 
 harness, and much time is left free for thought, 
 more intelligence is demanded, more activity, and 
 the citizens of the Free States have become the 
 most active, enterprising and industrious people in 
 the world ; the most inventive in material work. 
 
 In all these three forms of action there is much 
 to stir men to love of distinction. The career is 
 open to talent, to industry; open to every man; 
 the career of Letters, Business, and Politics. Our 
 
25 
 
 rich men were poor men ; our famous men came 
 of sires else not heard of. The laurel, the dollar, 
 the office and the consequent social distinction of 
 men successful in letters, business and politics, 
 these excite the obscure or needy youth to great 
 exertions, and he cannot sleep ; emulation wakes 
 him early, and keeps him late astir. Behind him, 
 scattering " the rear of darkness," stalk Poverty and 
 Famine, gaunt and ugly forms, with scorpion whip 
 to urge the tardier, idler man. The intense ambi- 
 tion for money, for political power, and the social 
 results they bring, keep men on the alert So 
 ambition rises early, and works with diligence that 
 never tires. 
 
 The Church, embracing all the churches under 
 that name, cultivates the memory of men, and 
 teaches reverence for the past ; it helps keep ac- 
 tivity from wandering into unpopular forms of wick- 
 edness or of unbelief. Men who have the average 
 intelligence, goodness and piety, it keeps from 
 slipping back, thus blacking to rearward the wheels 
 of society, so that the ascent gained shall not be 
 lost ; men who have less than this average it 
 urges forward, addressing them in the name of 
 God, encouraging by hope of Heaven, and driving 
 with fear of hell. It turns the thought of the peo- 
 ple towards God ; it sets before us some facts in 
 the life, and some parts of the doctrine of the no- 
 blest One who ever wore the form of man, bid- 
 ding us worship him. The ecclesiastical worship 
 of Jesus of Nazareth is, perhaps, the best thing in 
 4 
 
the American Church. It has the Sunday and the 
 institution of preaching under its control. A body 
 of disciplined men are its servants ; they praise 
 the ordinary virtues ; oppose and condemn the un- 
 popular forms of error and of sin. Petty vice, the 
 vice of low men, in low places, is sure of their 
 lash. They promote patriotism in its common 
 form. Indirectly, they excite social and industrial 
 rivalry, and favor the love of money by the honor 
 they bestow upon the rich and successful. But at 
 the same time they temper it a little, telling men, 
 as Business or the State does not, that there is in 
 man a conscience, affection for his brother-man, 
 and a soul which cannot live by bread alone ; no, 
 not by wealth, office, fame and social rank. They 
 tell us, also, of eternity, where worldly distinctions, 
 except of orthodox and heterodox, are forgotten, 
 where wealth is of no avail ; they bid us remem- 
 ber God. 
 
 Such are the good things of these great national 
 forces; the good things which in this fourfold 
 way we are teaching ourselves. The nation is a 
 monitorial school wonderfully contrived for the 
 education of the People. I do not mean to say 
 that it is by the forethought of men that the Amer- 
 ican Democracy is at the same time a great prac- 
 tical school for the education of the human race : 
 this result formed no part of our plan, and is not 
 provided for by the Constitution of the United 
 States ; it comes of the forethought of God, and is 
 provided for in the Constitution of the Universe. 
 
27 
 
 Now each of these educational forces has certain 
 defects, negative evils, and certain vices, positive 
 evils, which tend to misdirect the nation, and so 
 hinder the general education of the People : of 
 these, also, let me speak in detail. 
 
 The State appeals to force, not to Justice ; this is 
 its last appeal; the force of muscles aided by 
 force of mind, instructed by modern Science in 
 the Art to kill. The nation appeals to force in the 
 settlement of affairs out of its borders. We have 
 lately seen an example of this, when we com- 
 menced war against a feeble nation, who, in that 
 special emergency, had Right on her side, about 
 as emphatically as the force was on our side. The 
 immediate success of the enterprise, the popular 
 distinction acquired by some of the leaders, the 
 high honor bestowed on one of its heroes, all this 
 makes the lesson of injustice attractive. It may be 
 that a similar experiment will again be tried, and 
 doubtless with like success. Certainly there is no 
 nation this side of the water which can withstand 
 the enterprise, the activity, the invention, industry 
 and perseverance of a people so united, and yet so 
 free and intelligent. Another successful injustice 
 of this character, on a large scale, will make Right 
 still less regarded, and Might honored yet more. 
 
 The force we employ out of our borders, Might 
 opposed to Right, we employ also at home against 
 our brethren, and keep three millions of them in 
 bondage; we watch for opportunities to extend 
 the institution of Slavery over soil unpolluted by 
 
28 
 
 that triple curse, and convert the Constitution, the 
 fundamental law of the land, into an instrument 
 for the defence of Slavery, 
 
 The men we honor politically, by choosing them 
 to offices in the State, are commonly men of ex- 
 traordinary force, sometimes, it is true, only of 
 extraordinary luck, but of only ordinary Justice; 
 men who, perhaps, have Mind in the heroic degree, 
 but Conscience of the most vulgar pattern. They 
 are to keep the law of the United States when it 
 is wholly hostile to the law of the Universe to 
 the Everlasting Justice of God. 
 
 I am not speaking to Politicians, professional 
 representatives of the State ; not speaking for po- 
 litical effect ; not of the State as a political ma- 
 chine for the government of the People. I am 
 speaking to Teachers, for an educational purpose ; 
 of the State, as an educational machine, as one of 
 the great forces for the spiritual development of the 
 People. Now by this preference of force and post- 
 ponement of Justice at home and abroad, in the 
 selection of men for office, with its wealth, and 
 rank, and honor, by keeping the law of the land 
 to the violation of the law of God it is plain we 
 are teaching ourselves to love Wrong ; at least to 
 be insensible to the Right. What we practice on 
 a national scale as a people it is not easy to 
 think wrong when practised on a personal scale, 
 by this man and that. 
 
 The Patriotism, also, which the State nurses, is 
 little more than that Old Testament patriotism 
 
29 
 
 which loves your countryman, and hates the stran- 
 ger; the affection which the Old Testament attrib- 
 utes to Jehovah, and which makes him say, " I loved 
 Jacob, and I hated Esau ;" a patriotism which sup- 
 ports our country in the wrong as readily as in the 
 right, and is glad to keep one-sixth of the nation in 
 bondage without hope. It is not a patriotism 
 which, beginning here, loves all the children of 
 God, but one that robs the Mexican, enslaves the 
 African, and exterminates the Indian. 
 
 These are among the greater evils taught us by 
 the political action of the people as a whole. If 
 you look at the action of the chief political parties, 
 you see no more respect for Justice in the poli- 
 tics of either party, than in the politics of the na- 
 nation, the resultant of both ; no, no more respect 
 for Right abroad, or at home. One party aims 
 distinctively at preserving the property already ac- 
 quired ; its chief concern is for that, its sympathy 
 there ; where its treasure is, is also its heart. It 
 legislates, consciously or otherwise, more for accu- 
 mulated wealth, than for the laboring man who 
 now accumulates. This party goes for the Dollar ; 
 the other for the Majority, and aims at the greatest 
 good of the greatest number, leaving the good of 
 the smaller number to most uncertain mercies. 
 Neither party seems to aim at Justice, which pro- 
 tects both the wealth that labor has piled up, and 
 the laborer who now creates it ; Justice, which is 
 the point of morals common to man and God, 
 where the interests of all men, abroad and at home, 
 
electing and elected, greatest number and smallest 
 number, exactly balance. Falsehood, fraud, a wil- 
 lingness to deceive, a desire for the power and dis- 
 tinction of office, a readiness to use base means in 
 obtaining office these vices are sown with a 
 pretty even hand upon both parties, and spring up 
 with such blossoms and such a fruitage as we all 
 see. The third political party has not been long 
 enough in existence to develop any distinctive 
 vices of its own. 
 
 I shall not speak of the public or private charac- 
 ter of the politicians who direct the State ; no 
 doubt that is a powerful element in our national 
 education ; but as a class, they seem no better 
 and no worse than merchants, mechanics, minis- 
 ters, and farmers as a class ; so in their influence 
 there is nothing peculiar, only their personal char- 
 acter ceases to be private, and becomes a public 
 force in the education of the People. 
 
 The Churches have the same faults as the State. 
 There is the same postponement of Justice and 
 preference of force, the same neglect of the Law 
 of God in their zeal for the Statutes of Men ; the 
 same crouching to dollars or to numbers. How- 
 ever, in the Churches these faults appear nega- 
 tively, rather than as an affirmation. The world- 
 liness of the Church is not open, self-conscious 
 and avowed ; it is not that injustice is openly 
 defended, but rather Justice goes by default. But 
 if the Churches do not positively support and teach 
 
31 
 
 injustice, as the State certainly does, they do not 
 teach the opposite, and, so far as that goes, are 
 allies of the State in its evil influence. The fact 
 that the Churches, as such, did not oppose the 
 war, and do not oppose Slavery, its continuance, 
 or its extension ; nay, that they are often found its 
 apologists and defenders, seldom its opponents ; 
 that they not only pervert the sacred books of the 
 Christians to its defence, but wrest the doctrines of 
 Christianity to justify it ; the fact that they cannot, 
 certainly do not, correct the particularism of the 
 political parties, the love of wealth in one, of mere 
 majorities in the other ; that they know no patriot- 
 ism not bounded by their country, none coextensive 
 with mankind ; that they cannot resist the vice of 
 party-spirit these are real proofs that the Church 
 is but the ally of the State in this evil influence. 
 
 But the Church has also certain specific faults 
 of its own. It teaches injustice by continually 
 referring to the Might of God, not His Justice ; to 
 His ability and will to damn mankind, not asking 
 if He has the Right ? It teaches that in virtue of 
 His infinite power, He is not amenable to infinite 
 Justice, and to infinite Love. Thus, while the 
 State teaches, in the name of expediency and by 
 practice, that the Strong may properly be the tyrants 
 of the Weak, the mighty nation over the feeble, 
 the strong race over the inferior, that the govern- 
 ment may dispense with Right at home and 
 abroad the Church, as theory and in Christ's 
 name, teaches that God may repudiate His own 
 Justice and His own Love. 
 
32 
 
 The Churches have little love of Truth, as such, 
 only of its uses. It must be such a truth as they 
 can use for their purposes ; canonized truth ; truth 
 long known ; that alone is acceptable and called 
 " religious truth " ; only that is " of God " ; all else 
 is " profane and carnal," as the Reason which dis- 
 covers it. They represent the average intelligence 
 of society ; hence, while keeping the old, they 
 welcome not the new. They promote only popu- 
 lar forms of truth, popular in all Christendom, or 
 in their special sect. They lead in no intellectual 
 reforms ; they hinder the leaders. Negatively and 
 positively, they teach, that to believe what is cleri- 
 cally told you in the name of Religion, is better 
 than free, impartial search after the Truth. They 
 dishonor free thinking, and venerate constrained 
 believing. When the clergy doubt, they seldom 
 give men audience of their doubt. Few scientific 
 men not clerical believe the Bible account of cre- 
 ation, the Universe made in six days, and but a 
 few thousand years ago, or that of the formation 
 of woman, and of the deluge. Some clerical men 
 still believe these venerable traditions, spite of the 
 Science of the times ; but the clerical men who 
 have no faith in these stories not only leave the 
 people to think them true and miraculously taught, 
 but encourage men in the belief, and calumniate 
 the men of Science who look the Universe fairly in 
 the face and report the facts as they find them. 
 
 The Church represents only the popular moral- 
 ity, not any high and aboriginal virtue. It repre- 
 
33 
 
 sents not the Conscience of Human Nature, re- 
 flecting the universal and unchangeable moral laws 
 of God, touched and beautified by his love, but only 
 the Conscience of Human History, reflecting the 
 circumstances man has passed by, and the institu- 
 tions he has built along the stream of time. So, while 
 it denounces unpopular sins, vices below the average 
 vice of Society, it denounces also unpopular excel- 
 lence, which is above the average virtue of Society. 
 It blocks the wheels rearward, and the car of Hu- 
 manity does not roll down hill ; but it blocks them 
 forward also. No great moral movement of the 
 age is at all dependent directly on the Church for 
 its birth ; very little for its development. It is in 
 spite of th k Church that reforms go forward ; it 
 holds the curb to check more than the rein to guide. 
 I] Morals, as in Science, the Church is on the 
 anti-liberal side, afraid of progress, against move- 
 ment, loving " yet a little sleep, a little slumber ; " 
 conservative and chilling, like ice, not creative, nor 
 even quickening, as water. It doffs to use and 
 wont ; has small confidence in Human Nature, 
 much in a few facts of Human History. It aims 
 to separate Piety from Goodness, her natural and 
 heaven-appointed spouse, and marry her to Bigotry, 
 in joyless and unprofitable wedlock. The Church 
 does not lead men to the deep springs of Human 
 Nature, fed ever from the far heights of the Divine 
 Nature, whence flows that river of God, full of 
 living water, where weary souls may drink peren- 
 nial supply. While it keeps us from falling back, 
 5 
 
34 
 
 it does little directly to advance mankind. In com- 
 mon with the State, this Priest and Levite pass by 
 on the other side of the least developed classes of 
 Society, leaving the slave, the pauper, and the 
 criminal to their fate, hastening to strike hands with 
 the thriving or the rich. 
 
 These faults are shared in the main by all sects ; 
 some have them in the common, and some in a 
 more eminent degree, but none is so distinguished 
 from the rest as to need emphatic rebuke, or to de- 
 serve a special exemption from the charge. Such 
 are the faults of the Church of every land, and 
 must be from the nature of the institution ; like 
 the State, it can only represent the average of 
 mankind. 
 
 I am not speaking to Clergymen, professional 
 representatives of the Church, not of the Church 
 as an ecclesiastical machine for keeping and ex- 
 tending certain opinions and symbols; not for an 
 ecclesiastical purpose ; I speak to Teachers, for an 
 educational purpose, of the Church as an educa- 
 tional machine, one of the great forces for the spir- 
 itual development of the people. 
 
 The Business of the land has also certain vices 
 of its own : while it promotes the virtues I have 
 named before, it does not tend to promote the high- 
 est form of character. It does not promote justice 
 and humanity, as one could wish ; it does not lead 
 the employer to help the operative as a man, only 
 to use him as a tool, merely for industrial purposes. 
 
35 
 
 The average merchant cares little whether his ship 
 brings cloth and cotton, or opium and ram. The 
 average capitalist does not wish the stock of his 
 manufacturing company divided into small shares, 
 so that the operatives can invest their savings 
 therein and have a portion of the large dividends 
 of the rich ; nor does he care whether he takes 
 a mortgage on a ship or a negro slave, nor 
 whether his houses are rented for sober dwellings, 
 or for drunkeries ; whether the State hires his 
 money to build harbors at home, or destroy them 
 abroad. The ordinary manufacturer is as ready to 
 make cannons and cannon-balls to serve in a war 
 which he knows is unjust, as to cast his iron into 
 mill-wheels, or forge it into anchors, The common 
 farmer does not care whether his barley feeds poul- 
 try for the table, or, made into beer, breeds drunk- 
 ards for the almshouse and the jail ; asks not 
 whether his rye and potatoes become the bread of 
 life, or, distilled into whiskey, are deadly poison to 
 men and women. He cares little if the man he 
 hires become more manly or not; he only asks 
 him to be a good tool. Whips for the backs of 
 negro slaves are made, it is said, in Connecticut 
 with as little compunction as Bibles are printed 
 there ; " made to order," for the same purpose 
 for the dollar. The majority of blacksmiths would 
 as soon forge fetter-chains to enslave the innocent 
 limbs of a brother man, as draught-chains for oxen. 
 Christian mechanics and pious young women, 
 who would not hurt the hair of an innocent head, 
 
36 
 
 have I seen at Springfield, making swords to slaugh- 
 ter the innocent citizens of Vera Cruz and Jalapa. 
 The ships of respectable men carry rum to intoxi- 
 cate the savages of Africa, powder and balls to 
 shoot them with ; they carry opium to the Chi- 
 nese ; nay, Christian slaves from Eichmond and 
 Baltimore to New Orleans and Galveston. In all 
 commercial countries, the average vice of the age 
 is mixed up with the industry of the age, and un- 
 consciously men learn the wickedness long en- 
 trenched in practical life. It is thought industrial 
 operations are not amenable to the moral law, only 
 to the law of trade. " Let the supply follow the de- 
 mand " is the maxim. A man who makes as prac- 
 tical a use of the golden rule as of his yard -stick, 
 is still an exception in all departments of Business. 
 Even in the commercial and manufacturing parts 
 of America, money accumulates in large masses; 
 now in the hands of an individual, now of a cor- 
 poration. This money becomes an irresponsible 
 power, acting by the laws, but yet above them. It 
 is wielded by a few men, to whom it gives a high 
 soiial position and consequent political power. 
 They use this triple form of influence, pecuniary, 
 social and political, in the spirit of commerce, not 
 of Humanity, not for the interest of Mankind ; 
 thus the spirit of trade comes into the State. 
 Hence it is not thought wrong in politics to buy 
 a man, more than in commerce to buy a ship ; 
 hence the rights of a man, or a nation are looked 
 on as articles of trade, to be sold, bartered and 
 
37 
 
 pledged ; and in the Senate of the United States, 
 we have heard a mass of men, more numerous than 
 all our citizens seventy years ago, estimated as 
 worth twelve hundred millions of dollars. 
 
 In most countries Business comes more closely 
 into contact with men than the State, or the 
 Church, or the Press, and is a more potent educa- 
 tor. Here it not only does this but controls the 
 other three forces, which are mainly instruments of 
 this; hence this form of evil is more dangerous 
 than elsewhere, for there is no power organized to 
 resist it as in England or Rome; so it subtly pen- 
 etrates everywhere, bidding you place the accidents 
 before the substance of manhood and value money 
 more than man. 
 
 Notwithstanding the good qualities of the Press, the 
 books it multiplies, and the great service it renders, 
 it also has certain vices of its own. From the na- 
 ture of the thing the greater part of literature repre- 
 sents only the public opinion of the time. It must 
 therefore teach deference to that, not deference to 
 Truth and Justice. It is only the eminent litera- 
 ture which can do more than this ; books, which 
 at first fall into few hands though fit, and like the 
 acorn sown with the mulleins and the clover, 
 destined to germinate but slowly, long to be over- 
 topped by an ephemeral crop, at last, after half 
 an hundred years, shall mature their own fruit 
 for other generations of men. The current litera- 
 ture of this age only popularizes the thought of the 
 
38 
 
 eminent literature of the past Great good certainly 
 comes from this, but also great evil. 
 
 Of all literature the newspapers come most into 
 contact with men they are the literature of the 
 people, read by such as read nothing else ; read 
 also by such as read all things beside. Taken in the 
 mass they contain little to elevate men above 
 the present standard. The political journals have 
 the general vice of our Politics, and the special 
 faults of the particular party ; the theological jour- 
 nals have the common failings of the Church, inten- 
 sified by the bigotry of the sects they belong to ; 
 the commercial journals represent the bad qualities 
 of Business. Put all three together and it is not 
 their aim to tell the Truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth, nor to promote Justice, the 
 whole of justice, and nothing but justice. The 
 popular literature helps bring to consciousness the 
 sentiments and ideas which prevail in the State, the 
 Church, and Business. It brings those sentiments 
 and ideas intimately into connection with men, 
 magnetizing them with the good and ill of those 
 three powers, but it does little directly to promote 
 a higher form of human character. 
 
 So, notwithstanding the good influence of these 
 four modes of national activity in educating the 
 grown men of America, they yet do not afford the 
 highest teaching which the people require to real- 
 ize individually the idea of a Man, and jointly that 
 of a Democracy. The State does not teach per- 
 fect Justice ; the Church does not teach that, or 
 
39 
 
 Love of Truth. Business does not teach perfect 
 Morality, and the average Literature, which falls 
 into the hands of the million, teaches men to res- 
 pect public opinion more than the word of God, 
 which transcends that. Thus these four teach only 
 the excellence already organized or incorporated in 
 the laws, the theology, the customs, and the books 
 of the land. I cannot but think these four teach- 
 ers are less deficient here, than in other lands, and 
 have excellencies of their own, but the faults men- 
 tioned are inseparable from such institutions. An 
 institution is an organized thought ; of course, no in- 
 stitution can represent a truth which is too new, or 
 too high for the existing organizations, yet that is the 
 truth which it is desirable to teach. So there will 
 always be exceptional men, with more justice, 
 truth and love than is represented by the institu- 
 tions of the time, who seem therefore hostile to 
 these institutions, which they seek to improve and 
 not destroy. Contemporary with the Priests of 
 Judah and Israel were the Prophets thereof antithet- 
 ic to one another as the centripetal and centrifu- 
 gal forces, but, like them, both necessary to the 
 rhythmic movement of the orbs in heaven, and the 
 even poise of the world. 
 
 In Rome and in England the Idea of a Theoc- 
 racy and an Aristocracy has become a Fact in the 
 Institutions of the land, which, accordingly favor the 
 formation of Priests and Gentlemen. The Teachers 
 of the educated class, therefore, may trust to the ma- 
 chinery already established to do their work, only 
 
40 
 
 keeping off the spirit of the age which would make 
 innovations, and such is the resp3ctability and 
 popular esteem of the institutions, that this is done 
 easier than men think, by putting an exceptional 
 book in the index at Rome or in the academical 
 fire at Oxford. But here, the Idea of a Democracy 
 is by no means so well established and organized 
 in institutions. It is new, and while a Theocrat 
 and an Aristocrat are respected everywhere, a 
 Democrat is held in suspicion ; accordingly, to make 
 Men, the Teacher cannot trust his educational ma- 
 chinery, he must make it, and invent anew as 
 Wc4l as turn his mill. 
 
 These things being so, it is plain the Teachers in 
 the schools should be of such a character that they 
 can give the children what they will most want when 
 they become men ; such an intellectual and moral 
 development that they can appreciate and receive 
 the good influence of these four educational forces, 
 and withstand, resist, and exterminate the evil 
 thereof In the schools of a Democracy which are 
 to educate the People and make them men, you 
 need more aboriginal virtue than in the schools of 
 an Aristocracy or a Theocracy where a few are to be 
 educated as Gentlemen or Priests, Since the insti- 
 tutions of the land do not represent the Idea of a 
 Democracy, and the average spirit of the People 
 which makes the institutions represents it no 
 more, if the children of the People are to become 
 better than their fathers, it is plain their Teachers 
 
41 
 
 must be Prophets, and not Priests merely ; must 
 animate them with a spirit higher, purer and more 
 holy than that which inspires the State, the Church, 
 Business, or the common Literature of the times. 
 As the Teacher cannot impart and teach what he 
 does not possess and know, it is also plain that the 
 Teacher must have this superior spirit. 
 
 To accomplish the public education of the chil- 
 dren of the People we need the three classes of in 
 stitutions just mentioned : free Common Schools, 
 free High Schools and free Colleges. Let me say 
 a word of each. 
 
 The design of the Common School is to take 
 children at the proper age from their mothers, and 
 give them the most indispensable development, 
 intellectual, moral, affectional and religious, to 
 furnish them with as much positive, useful knowl- 
 edge as they can master, and, at the same time, 
 teach them the three great scholastic helps or tools 
 of education the art to read, to write and cal- 
 culate. 
 
 The children of most parents are easily brought 
 to school, by a little diligence on the part of the 
 Teachers, and school committee ; but there are 
 also children of low and abandoned, or at least, 
 neglected parents, who live in a state of continual 
 truancy ; they are found on the banks of your 
 canals; they swarrn in your large cities. When 
 those children become men, through lack of pre- 
 vious development, instruction and familiarity with 
 6 
 
these three instruments of education, they cannot 
 receive the full educational influence of the State 
 and Church, of Business and the Press: they 
 lost their youthful education, and therefore, they 
 lose, in consequence, their manly culture. They 
 remain Dwarfs, and are Barbarians in the midst of 
 Society ; there will be exceptional men whom 
 nothing can make vulgar ; but this will be the lot 
 of the mass. They cannot perform the intelli- 
 gent labor which Business demands, only the brute 
 work, so they lose the development which comes 
 through the hand that is active in the higher modes 
 of industry, which, after all, is the greatest educa- 
 tional force; accordingly, they cannot compete with 
 ordinary men, and remain poor ; lacking also that 
 self-respect which comes of being respected, they 
 fall into beggary, into intemperance, into crime ; so, 
 from being idlers at first, a stumbling-block in the 
 way of Society, they become paupers, a positive 
 burthen which Society must take on its shoulders ; 
 or they turn into criminals, active foes to the indus- 
 try, the order and the virtue of Society. 
 
 Now if a man abandons the body of his child, 
 the State adopts that body for a time ; takes the guar- 
 dianship thereof, for the child's own sake ; sees that 
 it is housed, fed, clad, and cared for. If a man 
 abandons his child's Spirit, and the child commits 
 a crime, the State, for its own sake, assumes the tem- 
 porary guardianship thereof and puts him in a 
 jail. "When a man deserts his child, taking no 
 concern about his education, I venture to make 
 
the suggestion, whether it would not be well, as 
 a last resort, for the State to assume the guardian- 
 ship of the child for its own sake, and for the 
 child's sake ? We allow no one, with ever so 
 thick a skin, to grow up in nakedness ; why should 
 we suffer a child, with however so perverse a par- 
 ent, to grow up in ignorance and degenerate into 
 crime ? Certainly, a naked man is not so danger- 
 ous to Society as an ignorant man, nor is the spec- 
 tacle so revolting. I should have less hope of a 
 State where the majority were so perverse as to 
 continue ignorant of reading, writing and calcu- 
 lating, than of one where they were so thick-skinned 
 as to wear no clothes. In Massachusetts, there 
 is an Asylum for juvenile offenders, established by 
 the city of Boston, a Farm School for bad boys, 
 established by the characteristic benevolence of the 
 rich men of that place, and a State Reform School 
 under the charge of the Commonwealth: all these 
 are for lads who break the laws of the land. 
 Would it not be better to so take one step more, 
 take them before they offended, and allow no 
 child to grow up in the barbarism of ignorance ? 
 Has any man an unalienable right to live a savage 
 in the midst of Civilization ? 
 
 We need also public High Schools, to take 
 children where the Common Schools leave them, 
 and carry them further on. Some States have 
 done something towards establishing such insti- 
 tutions; they are common in New England. 
 Some have established Normal Schools, special 
 
44 
 
 High Schools for the particular and professional 
 education of public Teachers. Without these, it is 
 plain there would not be a supply of competent 
 educators for the public service. 
 
 Then we need free Colleges, conducted by pub- 
 lic officers, and paid for by the public purse. 
 Without these the scheme is not perfect The 
 idea which lies at the basis of the public education 
 of the People in a Democracy, is this : every man, 
 on condition of doing his duty, has a right to the 
 means of education, as much as a right, on the 
 same condition, to the means of defence from a 
 a public enemy in time of war, or from starvation 
 in time of plenty and of peace. I say every 
 man, I mean every WOMAN also. The amount of 
 education must depend on the three factors 
 named before, on the general achievement of 
 mankind, the special ability of the State, and the 
 particular power of the individual. 
 
 If all is free, Common Schools, High Schools 
 and Colleges, boys and girls of common ability 
 and common love of learning, will get a common 
 education ; those of greater ability, a more extend- 
 ed education, and those of the highest powers, the 
 best culture which the Race can now furnish, and 
 the State afford. Hitherto no nation has establish- 
 ed a public College, wholly at the public cost, 
 where the children of the poor and the rich, could 
 enjoy together the great national charity of supe- 
 rior education. To do this is certainly not consist- 
 ent with the idea of a Theocracy or an Aristocracy, 
 
45 
 
 but it is indispensable to the complete realization 
 of a Democracy. Otherwise the children of the 
 rich will have a monopoly of superior education, 
 which is the case with the girls everywhere for 
 only the daughters of rich men can get a superior^ 
 education, even in the United States, and with 
 boys in England and France, and of course the 
 offices, emoluments and honors which depend on 
 a superior education ; or else the means thereof 
 will be provided for poor lads by private bene- 
 factions, charity -funds and the like, which some 
 pious and noble man has devoted to this work. In 
 this case the institutions will have a sectarian 
 character, be managed by narrow, bigoted men, 
 and the gift of the means of education be coupled 
 with conditions which must diminish its value, 
 and fetter the free spirit of the young man. This 
 takes place in many of the collegiate establish- 
 ments of the North, which, notwithstanding those 
 defects, have done a great good to mankind. 
 
 The Common Schools giving their pupil the pow- 
 er of reading, writing and calculating, developing his 
 faculties arid furnishing him with much element- 
 ary knowledge, put him in communication with 
 all that is written in a common form, in the English 
 tongue ; its treasures lie level to his eye and hand. 
 The High School and the College, teaching him 
 also other languages, afford him access to the 
 treasures contained there ; teaching him the math- 
 ematics and furnishing him with the discipline of 
 Science, they enable him to understand all that 
 
46 
 
 has hitherto been recorded in the compendious 
 forms of Philosophy, and thus place the child of 
 large ability in connection with all the spiritual treas- 
 ures of the world. In the mean time, for all these 
 pupils, there is the material and the human world 
 about them, the world of consciousness within. 
 They can study both and add what they may to 
 the treasures of human discovery or invention. 
 
 It seems to me that it is the duty of the State to 
 place the means of this education within the reach 
 of all children of superior ability, a duty that 
 follows from the very idea of a Democracy, not to 
 speak of the idea of Christianity. It is not less the 
 interest of the State to do so, for then, youths, well 
 born, with good abilities, will not be hindered 
 from getting a breeding proportionate to their birth, 
 and from occupying the stations which are ade- 
 quately filled only by men of superior native 
 abilities, enriched by culture, and developed to 
 their highest power. Then the work of such sta- 
 tions will fall to the lot of such men, and of course be 
 done. Eminent ability, talent or genius, should 
 have eminent education, and so serve the nation in 
 its eminent kind ; for when God makes a million- 
 minded man, as once or twice in the ages, or a 
 myriad-minded man, as He does now and then, it 
 is plain that this gift also is to be accounted pre- 
 cious and used for the advantage of all. 
 
 I say no State has ever attempted to establish 
 such institutions ; yet the government of the United 
 States has a seminary for the public education of 
 
47 
 
 a few men at the public cost. But it is a school 
 to qualify men to fight ; they learn the science of 
 destruction, the art thereof, the kindred art and 
 science of defence. If the same money we now 
 pay for military education at West Point were di- 
 rected to the education of Teachers of the highest 
 class, say Professors and Presidents of Colleges; 
 if the same pains were taken to procure able men, 
 to furnish them with the proper instruction for their 
 special work, and give them the best possible gen- 
 eral developement of their powers, not forgetting 
 the moral, the affectional and the religious, and 
 animating them with the philanthropic spirit needed 
 for such a work, how much better results would ap- 
 pear ! But in the present intellectual condition of 
 the people it would be thought unworthy of a na- 
 tion to train up Schoolmasters ! But is it only Sol- 
 diers that we need ? 
 
 All these institutions are but introductory, a 
 Preparatory School, in three departments, to fit 
 youths for the great educational establishment of 
 practical life. This will find each youth and 
 maiden as the schools leave him, moulding him 
 to their image, or moulded by him to a better. So 
 it is plain what the Teachers are to do : besides 
 teaching the special branches which fall to their 
 lot, they are to supply for the pupil, the defects of 
 the State, of the Church, of Business and the Press, 
 especially the moral defects. For this great work 
 of mediating between the mother and the world, 
 for so furnishing and fitting the rising generation, 
 
48 
 
 introducing them into practical life, that they shall 
 receive all the good of these public educational 
 forces with none of the ill, but enhance the one 
 while they withstand the other, and so, each in him- 
 self realize the Idea of man, and all in their social 
 capacity, the Idea of a Democracy it is also plain 
 what sort of men we need for Teachers : we need 
 able men, well endowed by nature, well disciplined 
 by art; we need superior men men juster than the 
 State, truer and better than the Churches, more hu- 
 mane than Business, and higher than the common 
 literature of the Press. There are always men of 
 that stamp born into the world ; enough of them in 
 any age to do its work. How shall we bring them 
 to the task ? Give young men and women the 
 opportunity to fit themselves for the work, at free 
 Common Schools, High Schools, Normal Schools 
 and Colleges ; give them a pay corresponding to 
 their services, as in England and Rome ; give them 
 social rank and honor in that proportion, and they 
 will come ; able men will come ; men well discip- 
 lined will come ; men of talent and even genius for 
 education will come. 
 
 In the State you pay a man of great political 
 talents large money and large honors ; hence there 
 is no lack of ability in Politics, none of competition 
 for office. In the Church you pay a good deal for 
 a " smart Minister," one who can preach an audi- 
 ence into the pews and not himself out of the pul- 
 pit. Talent enough goes to Business; educated 
 talent too, at least with a special education for this, 
 
49 
 
 honor, and social distinction. Private Colleges and 
 Theological Schools, often, have powerful men for 
 their Professors and Presidents ; sometimes, men of 
 much talent for education ; commonly, men of ripe 
 learning and gentlemanly accomplishments. Even 
 men of genius seek a place as Teachers in some 
 private college, where they are under the control 
 of the leaders of a sect, and must not doubt its 
 creed, nor set science a going freely lest it run over 
 some impotent theological dogma ; or else of a little 
 coterie, or close corporation of men selected because 
 radical or because conservative, men chosen not on 
 account of any special fitness for superintending 
 the superior education of the People, but because 
 they were one-sided, and leaned this way in Mass- 
 achusetts and that in Virginia. Able men seek such 
 places because they get a competent pay, competent 
 honors, competent social rank. Senators and Ambas- 
 sadors are not ashamed to be Presidents of a college, 
 and submit to the control of a coterie, or a sect, and 
 produce their results. If such men can be had for 
 private establishments to educate a few to work in 
 such trammels and such company, certainly, it is 
 not difficult to get them for the public and for the 
 education of all. As the State has the most children 
 to educate, the most money to pay with, it is clear, 
 not only that they need the best ability for this work, 
 but that they can have it soon as they make the 
 Teacher's calling gainful and respectable. 
 
 In England and Rome, the most important spir- 
 itual function of the State is the production of the 
 7 
 
50 
 
 Gentleman and the Priest ; in Democratic America it 
 is the production of the Man. Some nations have 
 taken pains with the military training of all the 
 People, for the sake of the State, and made every 
 man a soldier. No nation has hitherto taken 
 equivalent pains with the general education of all, 
 for the sake of the State, and the sake of the citi- 
 zens ; " the heathens of China " have done more 
 than any Christian people, for the education of all 
 this was not needed in a Theocracy, nor an Aristoc- 
 racy it is essential to a Democracy. This is 
 needed politically, for, where all men are voters, 
 the ignorant man, who cannot read the ballot 
 which he casts ; the thief, the pirate and the mur- 
 derer, may, at any time, turn the scale of an elec- 
 tion, and do us a damage which it will take cen- 
 turies to repair. Ignorant men are the tools of the 
 demagogue; how often he uses them, and for 
 what purposes we need not go back many years 
 to learn. Let the people be ignorant and suffrage 
 universal, a very few men will control the State 
 and laugh at the folly of the applauding multitude 
 whose bread they waste, and on whose necks they 
 ride to indolence and miserable fame. 
 
 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, careless- 
 ly, 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 the 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 na- 
 tion 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 ban- 
 ner ; " the Printing Press does more than the can- 
 non, 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, how- 
 ever well meaning. They tried for it at Rome, 
 full of enlightened Priests ; in Germany, the para- 
 dise of the Scholar, but there was not a People well 
 educated, and a Democracy could not stand up- 
 right 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 choose 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 con- 
 science, 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 na- 
 tions are priest-ridden, some king-ridden, some rid- 
 den of nobles ; America is ridden by politicians, a 
 heavy burthen for a foolish neck. 
 
 Our industrial interests demand the same edu- 
 cation, the industrial prosperity of the North, our 
 lands yearly enriching, while they bear their annu- 
 al crop ; our railroads, mills and machines, the 
 harness with which we tackle the elements, for 
 we domesticate fire and water, yes. the very light- 
 ning 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-fourhs 
 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 Superintend- 
 ent of the Common Schools of Massachusetts, a 
 place, whence we could ill spare him, to take 
 the place of the noble man he succeeds. Few of 
 the prominent scholars of the land, interest them- 
 selves 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. ques- 
 tion before us : Shall we give our posterity the 
 greatest blessing which 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 ; which 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 
 
54 
 
 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 good- 
 ness, 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 far- 
 mers 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 Manufac- 
 tures, her Commerce ; they would have been, per- 
 
55 
 
 haps, even behind the Agriculture, Commerce and 
 Manufactures of South Carolina. I need not ask 
 what would be the condition of her free church- 
 es, or the republican institutions which now beau- 
 tify her rugged shores and sterile soil ; there would 
 be no such churches, no such institutions. If 
 there had been no such schools in New Eng- 
 land, 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, per- 
 sonal far more than I now dare to calculate. I 
 know men object to public schools; they say, edu- 
 cation must be bottomed on religion, and that 
 cannot be taught unless we have a State-religion, 
 taught " by authority " in all our schools ; we can- 
 not 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 relig- 
 ion after Piety and Goodness are removed, may 
 
56 
 
 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 the man's sake. Every man with a supe- 
 rior culture, intellectual, moral and religious, ev- 
 ery 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 supe- 
 rior 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 pub- 
 lic Education of the People, for it is the most im- 
 portant 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 abil- 
 ities, 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 man- 
 kind, their legal heirs. Why does God sometimes 
 endow a man with intellectual power, making, 
 
57 
 
 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 pre- 
 cious almoner of wisdom ; one of the public guar- 
 dians 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 edu- 
 cation of the People. If they neglect this, they are 
 false to their trust. The culture which separates 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. 
 
 Men and women, practical teachers now before 
 me, a great trust is in your hands ; nine-tenths of 
 the children of the People, depend on you for their 
 early culture, for all the scholastic discipline they 
 will ever get ; their manly culture will depend on 
 that, their prosperity thereon, all these on you. 
 When they are men, you know what evils they 
 will easily learn from State and Church, from Busi- 
 ness and the Press. It is for you to give them such 
 a developing and such a furnishing of their powers, 
 that they will withstand, counteract and extermi- 
 nate that evil. Teach them to love Justice better 
 than their native land, Truth better than their 
 Church, Humanity more than money, and Fidelity 
 8 
 
58 
 
 to their own Nature better than the Public Opinion 
 of the Press. As the chief thing of all, teach them 
 to love man and God. Your characters will be the 
 inspiration of these children ; your prayers their 
 practice, your faith their works. 
 
 The rising generation is in your hands, you can 
 fashion them in your own image, you will, you 
 must do this. Great duties will devolve on these 
 children when grown up to be men ; you are to fit 
 them for these duties. Since the Revolution, there 
 has not been a question before the country not 
 a question of Constitution or Confederacy, Free 
 Trade or Protective Tariff, Sub-treasury or Bank, 
 of Peace or War, Freedom or Slavery, the Exten- 
 sion of Liberty, or the Extension of Bondage 
 not a question of this sort has come up before 
 Congress, or the People, which could not have been 
 better decided by seven men, honest, intelligent 
 and just, who loved man and God, and looked, 
 with a single eye, to what was right in the case. 
 It is your business to train up such men. A Rep- 
 resentative, a Senator, a Governor may be made, 
 any day, by a vote. Ballots can make a President 
 out of almost any thing; the most ordinary ma- 
 terial is not too cheap and vulgar for that. But all 
 the votes of all the conventions, all the parties, are 
 unable to make a People capable of self-govern- 
 ment. Nay, they cannot put Intelligence and Jus- 
 tice into the head of a single man. You are to do 
 that. You are the " Sacred Legion," the " Theban 
 Brothers " to repel the greatest foes that can invade 
 
59 
 
 the land, the only foes to be feared; you are to 
 repel Ignorance, Injustice, Unmanliness and Irre- 
 ligion. With none else to help you, in ten years' 
 time, you can double the value of your schools, 
 double the amount of development and instruc- 
 tion you annually furnish. So doing, you shall 
 double, triple, quadruple, multiply manifold the 
 blessings of the land. You can, if you will. I ask 
 if you will ? If your works say " Yes," then you will 
 be the great Benefactors of the land, not giving 
 money, but a charity far nobler yet, Education, the 
 greatest charity. You will help fulfil the prophecy 
 which noble men long since predicted of mankind, 
 and help found the Kingdom of Heaven on earth ; 
 you will follow the steps of that noblest man of 
 men, the Great Educator of the Human Race, 
 whom the Christians still worship as their God. 
 Yes, you will work with God himself; He will 
 work with you, work for you, and bless you with 
 everlasting life. 
 
f< 
 
 I 
 
-J: 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 REC'D LD" 
 
 SEP 11982 
 SEP 31983 8B 
 
 LD21-100m-ll,'49(B7116sl6)476 
 
04464 
 
 M3054S9 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY