Gentlemen, when such dangers hedge our politically relied upon, to save her from the dangers that hem edifice; when we recollect the storms which have al-round a democracy, unsupported by popular knowledge ready burst upon it, and that, although it has survived and virtue. Cyrus the Great, when a boy, among his them, we have no guarantee for its withstanding even less furious ones hereafter-as a ship may ride out many a tempest safely, and yet be so racked in her joints as to go down at last under a capful of wind; above all, when we reflect that the same cankers which have destroyed all former commonwealths, are now at work within our own;-it would betoken, to my view, more of irrational credulity than of patriotism, to feel that sanguine, unconditional confidence in the durableness of our institutions, which those profess, who are perpetually making it the test of good citizenship "never to despair of the republic." But is it ever to be thus? Were then the visions of liberty for centuries on centuries, which our fathers so fondly cherished, all deceitful? Were the toil, and treasure, and blood they lavished as that liberty's price, all lavished in vain? Is there no deliverance for man, from the doom of subjection which kings and their minions pronounce against him? No remedy for the diseases which, in freedom's apparently most healthful state, menace her with death? play fellows, avoided contests with his inferiors in strength and swiftness; always challenging to the race or the wrestling match, those fleeter and stronger than himself: by which means, observes Xenophon, he soon excelled them. Imitating this wise magnanimity of Cyrus, let us, in looking around to find how we may attain an excellence, worthy of Virginia's early and long illustrious but now paling fame, compare ourselves not with States that have been as neglectful as we, of popu lar education, but with some which have outstript us in that march of true glory.* The Common-school system of New York, which has been in operation since the year 1816, is in substance this: The counties having been already laid off into tracts of five or six miles square, called townships,—each of these, upon raising one half the sum needed there for teachers' wages, is entitled to have the other half furnished from the state treasury: and each neighborhood in the township, before it can receive any part of this joint sum, must organize itself as a school district, build and furnish a school house, and cause a school to be taught there for at least three months, by a teacher who has been examined and found duly qualified, by a standing committee, appointed for that purpose. To the schools thus established, all children, rich and poor If it is not ever to be thus; if the anticipations of our revolutionary patriots were not all delusive dreams, and their blood fell not in vain to the ground; if man's general doom is not subjection, and the examples of his freedom are not mere deceitful glimmerings up of hap-alike, are admitted without charge. Mark the fruits of piness above the fixed darkness which enwraps him, designed but to amuse his fancy and to cheat his hopes; if there is a remedy for the diseases that poison the health of liberty;-the reason-that remedy-can be found only in one short precept-ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE! ble part of the year; and in Massachusetts, in 1832, there were but TEN persons between the ages of 14 and 21, who could not read and write. this system. In 1832, there were in the state 508,878 children; of whom 494,959 were regular pupils at the common-schools: leaving fewer than 14,000 for private or other instruction, and reducing the number who are unschooled, to an inappreciable point. In Massachusetts, the townships are compelled by law to defray Nothing-I scruple not to avow-it has been my nearly the whole expense of their schools; and the orthought for years-nothing but my reliance on the effi-ganization is in other respects less perfect than in New cacy of this precept, prevents my being, at this instant, York. In each, however, about ONE-FOURTH of the a monarchist. Did I not, with burning confidence, be-whole population is receiving instruction for a consideralieve that the people can be enlightened, and that they may so escape the dangers which encompass them, I should be for consigning them at once to the calm of hereditary monarchy. But this confidence makes me Connecticut, with a school fund yielding 180,000 dolno monarchist: makes me, I trust, a true whig; not in lars annually, and with common schools established by the party acceptation of the day, but in the sense, em- law in every township, finds their efficacy in a great ployed by Jefferson, of one who trusts and cherishes the degree marred by a single error in her plan. This error people. Throughout his life, we find that great states-is, that the whole expense is defrayed by the state. In conman insisting upon popular instruction as an inseparable sequence of this, the people take little interest in the requisite to his belief in the permanency of any popular schools; and the children are sent so irregularly, as to government: "Ignorance and bigotry," said he, "like derive a very insignificant amount of beneficial instrucother insanities, are incapable of self-government." His tion: so clearly is it shewn, that a gratuity, or what authority might be fortified by those of Sidney, Mon- seems to be one, is but lightly valued. The statesmen tesquieu, and of all who have written extensively or of Connecticut, convinced that the only method of rousluminously upon free government: but this is no timeing the people from their indifference, is to make them for elaborate quotations; and indeed why cite authorities, to prove what is palpable to the glance? Immense is the chasm to be filled, immeasurable the space to be traversed, between the present condition of mental culture in Virginia, and that which can be safe contribute something for the schools in their own immediate neighborhood, and so become solicitous to get the worth of their money, are meditating the adoption of a plan like that of New York. Even in Europe, we may find admirable, nay wonderful examples, for our imitation. "The parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those * Montesquieu, mentioning the adoption, by the Romans, of of Aristocrats and Democrats-Côté droite and côté gauche- an improved buckler from a conquered nation, remarks, that the Ultras and Radicals-Serviles and Liberals. The sickly, weak-chief secret of Roman greatness was, their renouncing any ly, timid man, fears the people, and is a tory by nature. The usage of their own, the moment they found a better one. ["Ils healthy, strong, and bold, cherishes them, and is a whig by na- ont toujours renoncé à leurs usages, sitot qu'ils en ont trouvé de Lure." Jefferson. meilleurs."] Grandeur et Decadence des Romains—Chap. 1. PRUSSIA has a system, strikingly analogous to that of we aim to instruct only the children of the poor; literary New York; and in some respects, superior to it. As paupers. We thus at once create two causes of failure: in New York, the superintendence of popular education first, the slight value which men set upon what costs is entrusted to a distinct branch of the government; to them nothing, as was evinced in the case of Connectia gradation of salaried officers, whose whole time is cut; second, the mortification to pride (an honest though employed in regulating the courses of study, compiling mistaken pride,) in being singled out as an object of or selecting books, examining teachers, and inspecting charity. As if these fatal errors had not sufficiently the schools. At suitable intervals, are schools expressly ensured the impotence of the scheme, the schools themfor the instruction of teachers: of which, in 1831, there selves are the least efficient that could be devised. Inexisted thirty-three-supplying a stock of instructors, stead of teachers retained expressly for the purpose,-accomplished in all the various knowledge taught in the selected, after strict examination into their capacities, Prussian schools. In no country on earth-little as we and vigilantly superintended afterwards, by competent might imagine it--is there probably so well taught a judges--the poor children are entered by the neighborpopulation as in Prussia. Witness the fact, that in ing commissioner (often himself entirely unqualified 1931, out of 2,043,000 children in the kingdom, 2,021,000 either to teach or to direct teaching,) in the private regularly attended the common schools: leaving but school which chance, or the teacher's unfitness for any 22,000 to be taught at their homes or in private acade- other employment, combined always with cheapness of mies.* France, in 1833, adopted the Prussian plan, price, may have already established nearest at hand. with effects already visible in the habits and employ- There, the little protegé of the commonwealth is thrown ments of her people; and similar systems have long ex- amongst pupils, whose parents pay for them and give isted in Germany, and even in Austria. The schools some heed to their progress; and having no friend to for training teachers (called, in France and Germany, see that he is properly instructed--mortified by the hunormal schools) pervade all these countries. miliating name of poor scholar-neglected by the teacher--and not rigorously urged to school by any one--he learns nothing, slackens his attendance, and soon quits the temple of science in rooted disgust. In England, government has yet done little towards educating the common people: but Scotland has long enjoyed parish schools equalled only by those of Prussia, Germany, and some of our own states, in creating a virtuous and intelligent yeomanry. Throughout Great Britain, voluntary associations for the diffusion of useful knowledge, in which are enrolled some of the most illustrious minds not only of the British empire but of this age, have been for years in active and salutary operation; and, by publishing cheap and simple tracts upon useful and entertaining subjects, and by sending over the country competent persons to deliver plain and popular lectures, illustrated by suitable apparatus, they have, as the North American Review expresses it, "poured floods of intellectual light upon the lower ranks of society." From a comparison with no one of the eight American and European states that I have mentioned, can Virginia find, in what she has done towards enlightening her people, the slightest warrant for that pre-eminent self-esteem, which, in some other respects, she is so well entitled to indulge. Except England, she is far behind them all: and even England (if her Societies for diffusing knowledge have not already placed her before us) is now preparing, by wise and beneficent legislation, to lead away with the rest. Let me not be deemed unfilial or irreverent, if I expose, somewhat freely, the deficiences of our venerable commonwealth in this one particular. It is done in a dutiful spirit, with a view purely to their amendment: and may not children, in such a spirit and with such a view, commune frankly with one another? A great and obvious difference between our primary school system, and the common-school systems of the northern states, is, that they take in ALL children: while *The enumeration in Prussia, is of children between 7 and 14 years of age; in New York, of those between 5 and 16. In Prussia, the sending of all children to school is ensured by legal penalties upon parents, guardians, and masters, who fail to send. New York approximates remarkably to the same result, by simply enlisting the interest of her people in their schools. Ever since 1646, except 36 years, embracing the tyrannical and worthless reigns of Charles II and James II. Observe now, I pray you, how precisely the results agree with what might have been foretold, of such a system. In 1833, nearly 33,000 poor children (literary paupers) were found in 100 counties of Virginia; of whom but 17,081 attended school at all: and these 17,081 attended on an average, but SIXTY-FIVE DAYS OF THE YEAR, EACH! The average of learning acquired by each, during those 65 days, would be a curious subject of contemplation: but I know of no arithmetical rule, by which it could be ascertained. That it bears a much less proportion to the reasonable attainments of a full scholastic year, than 65 bears to the number of days in that year, there can be no doubt. Ranging, out of the schools, through the general walks of society, we find among our poorer classes, and not seldom in the middling, an ignorance equally deplorable and mortifying. Judging by the number met with in business transactions, who cannot write their names or read, and considering how many there are whose poverty or sex debars them from such transactions, and lessens their chances of scholarship; we should scarcely exceed the truth, in estimating the white adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, at twenty or thirty thousand. "What you say here, is verified" (said a venerable friend to me, on reading these sheets as they were preparing for the press -a friend who at the age of 72, has taken upon him to teach 12 or 14 boys; more than half of them without compensation--) "what you say here, is verified in my school. Those who do not pay, attend hardly half their time; and one, who is anxious to learn, and would learn if he came regularly, is kept by his father to work at home, and has not been to school now for more than a fortnight. And it was just so," continued he, "when I managed the W. trust fund for a charity school, 20 odd years ago. The parents could not be induced to send their children. Sometimes they were wanted at home: sometimes they were too ragged to go abroad: sometimes they had no victuals to carry to school. And when we offered to furnish them provisions if they would attend, the parents said no, that was being too dependent.' In short, the school produced not half the good it might have done. There was the most striking difference between the charity scho. lars, and those who paid." Similar testimony as to such schools may be obtained of hundreds. And of many who can read, how contracted the range | school system had so long been regarded with apathy. of intellect! The mineral, vegetable, and animal king- The statute has been acted upon, so far as I have doms, all unexplored, though presented hourly to the learned, in but three counties of the State; remaining, eye; the glorious heavens, their grandeur, their dis-as to the other 107, a dead letter. I have the strongtances, and the laws of their motion, unthought of; est warrant-that of actual experiment, in New York man himself—his structure, so fearful and so wonder-and in Massachusetts-for saying, that had the law ful those traits in his bodily and mental frame, atten- commanded the commissioners to lay off districts in all tion to which would the most essentially conduce to counties where the census shewed a sufficiently dense bodily and mental health-all unnoted; History, Geo-white population; and had it then organized in the disgraphy, tabule rase to them! And for political knowl-tricts some local authorities, whose duty it should be to edge, upon which we of Virginia mainly pride our-levy the needful amount upon their people;-I should selves--choose, at random, a man from the throng in any court-house yard, and question him touching the division of power between our two governments, and its distribution among the departments of each: the probabilities are ten to one, that he will not solve one in ten of your questions-even of those which are to be answered from the mere faces of the two constitutions. Take him then into that wild, where construction has been wont to ex-shame at the contemplation of her inferiority to those, patiate, and you will find him just able to declare for or against this or that controverted power or measure: not because his reason has discerned it to be constitutional or otherwise, but because it is approved or disapproved by a chief of his own party, or by the leader of a hostile one. And the aggregate of opinions thus caught by accident, is the basis of the popular will: and it is the voice prompted by this will, that is called "The voice of God!" have been saved the ungracious task of reproaching my above whom she once vaunted herself so highly, will induce measures which cannot be much longer deferred without disgrace as well as danger. In addition to normal schools (for training teachers,) an able writer in the Edinburgh Review (to which* I owe the particulars of the Prussian, German, and French school systems) suggests, in my opinion very judiciously, the attaching of a Professorship to Colleges, for lecturing upon the art of instruction; to be called the Do not misapprehend me. Never would I have the professorship of Didactics. Such a chair, ably filled, voice of the people other than "the voice of God”—would be invaluable for multiplying enlightened teachother than all-powerful-within its appropriate sphere.ers, and for enhancing the dignity of that under-estiI am as loyal to their sovereignty as the most devout of mated pursuit. Conjointly with the normal schools, it their flatterers can be: and it is from my desire to see would soon ensure an abundant supply of instructors it perpetuated, that I speak out these unpalatable truths. for all the common schools. Some roughness of handling is often necessary to heal The kinds of knowledge which should be studied in the a wound. The people, like other sovereigns, are some-schools, and diffused by books, tracts, and oral lectures, times misled by flattery: they should imitate also the wisdom of those monarchs we occasionally meet with in history, who can hear unwelcome truths, and let the speaker live; nay, hearken kindly to his discourse, and let it weigh upon their future conduct. Do I overrate the portion of the people I now address, in classing them with such monarchs? among the people, form an important topic of consideration. It is not for me, at least now and here, to ob│trude an inventory of my favorite subjects, or favorite books: but the claims of a few subjects upon our regard are so overshadowing, as to make dissent scarcely possible, and their omission wholly unpardonable, in any extensive view of the connexion between popular education, and popular government. Sagacious men have not been wanting among us, to see the radical defects of our primary school system: Foremost of these, is the subject of Constitutional and in 1829, the late Mr. Fitzhugh* of Fairfax, stimu-Law, and Political Right: something of which might lated the Legislature to a feeble effort towards correct-be taught, even in childhood. If the children of Rome ing them, by empowering the school commissioners of were obliged, at school, to lay up in memory the laws any county to lay it off into districts of not less than of the Twelve Tables, with all their ferocious absurdithree nor more than seven miles square; and to pay, ties; how much more should the children of our country out of the public fund, two-fifths of the sum requisite for learn those fundamental laws, which guarantee to them building a school house, and half a teacher's salary, for the noble inheritance of a rational and virtuous freedom! any one of those districts, whenever its inhabitants, by Even to very young minds, the structure and powers of voluntary subscription, should raise the residue necessary our two governments may be rendered intelligible by for these purposes: and the schools thus established familiar and impartial treatises, with clear oral expla were to be open, gratuitously, alike to rich and poor. nations. The merit of impartiality in these political But the permissive phraseology of this statute com-lessons, is illustrated by the odiousness of a departure pletely neutralized its effect. It might have been fore- from it, which startled me the other day, in reading the seen, and it was foreseen, that empowering the commis- THIRTY-FIFTH EDITION of a popular and in other ressioners to act, and leaving the rest to voluntary contribu-pects an excellent History of the United States, detions, would be unavailing, where the workings of the * William H. Fitzhugh-whose death cannot yet cease to be deplored as a public calamity; cutting short, as it did, a career, which his extraordinary means and his devoted will alike bade fair to make a career of distinguished usefulness. *Nos. 116, 117-July and October, 1833-reviewing several works of M. Cousin, who went as commissioner from France, to explore and report upon the Prussian and German systems of public instruction. By Charles A. Goodrich. The abstract of the Constitution is sist the erring impulses of a misguided multitude, not less than the unrighteous mandates of a frowning tyrantsthe ease, so often exemplified, with which a people may be duped by the forms of freedom, long after the substance is gone-the incredible aptitude of example to become precedent, and of precedent to ripen into law, until usurpation is established upon the ruins of liberty--and the difference between true and false GREATNESS, SO little could not be better illustrated, than by a fair comparison of Washington with Bonaparte: a task which Dr. Channing, of Boston, has executed, in an essay among the most elegant and powerful in the English or any other language. To render Political Economy intelligible to a modcrate capacity, dissertations sufficiently plain and full might easily be extracted from the writings of Smith and Say, and from the many luminous discussions, oral and written, which it has undergone in our own country. Miss Martineau has shewn how well its truths may be set forth in the captivating form of tales: and the writings of Mr. Condy Raguet teem with felicitous illustrations. signed for schools; where that section* of the Federal | which is run after"*—the importance of learning to reConstitution which declares the powers of Congress, is presented thus: "The Congress of the United States shall have power to make and enforce all laws which are necessary to THE GENERAL WELFARE-AS to lay and collect taxes," &c.—going on to enumerate the specified powers, as mere examples of Congressional omnipotence! And the myriads of tender minds, which probably already owe all their knowledge of the Constitution to the abstract where this precious morsel of political doc-appreciated by the mass of mankind. This last point trine occurs, can hardly fail to carry through life the impression, that the powers of Congress are virtually as unbounded as those of the British Parliament. Now, to make patriots, and not partisans-upholders of vital faith, not of sectarian doctrine--treatises for the political instruction of youth should quote the letter of every such controverted passage, with a brief and fair statement of the opinions and reasonings on both sides. The course of political study would be very incomplete, | without the Declaration of Independence, and Washington's Farewell Address: and occasion might readily be found to correct or guard against some fallacies, afloat among mankind, and often mischievously used as axioms. “That the majority should govern," is an instance of Practical Morals-I mean that department, which them: a saying, which, by being taken unqualifiedly teaches, and habituates us, to behave justly and kindly as at all times placing the majority above the Constitu- to our fellow creatures--will ever be poorly taught by tion and Laws, has repeatedly caused both to be out- dry precepts and formal essays. No vehicle of moral raged. Witness the "New Court Law" of Kentucky, instruction is comparable to the striking narrative. in 1825; and a very similar act passed by Congress, How is it possible for any school-boy to rob an orin 1801. The prevalent opinions, that parties, and party chard, after having read Miss Edgeworth's "Tarlspirit, are salutary in a republic; that every citizen is ton ?"-or to practise unfairness in any bargain, when in duty bound to join one or the other party; and that he has glowed at the integrity of Francisco, in purhe ought to go with his party, in all measures, whe-posely shewing the bruised side of his melon to a purther they be intrinsically proper or otherwise; if not chaser? or not to loathe party spirit, when he has fallacies so monstrous as to make their currency wonderful, are at least propositions so questionable and so important, as to make them worthy of long and thorough investigation before they be adopted as truths. been early imbued with the rational sentiments contained in the "Barring Out?" In short, to be familiar with the mass of that lady's incomparable writings for youth, and not have the principles and feelings of economy, industry, courage, honor, filial and frater he fail to find, in "Sandford and Merton," for the daily occasions of life, the happiest lessons of duty and humanity, and for those great conjunctures which never occur in many a life time, the most resistless incentives to a more than Roman heroism? Without expending word upon that trite theme, the utility of history to all who have any concern in go-nal love, engrained into his very soul? Or how can vernment, I may be allowed to remark, that works for historical instruction, instead of being filled with sieges and battles, should unfold, as much as possible, those occult and less imposing circumstances, which often so materially influence the destinies of nations: the welltimed flattery--the lap-dog saved--the favorite's in- Other branches of knowledge are desirable for the trigue--the priest's resentment or ambition--to which republican citizen, less from any peculiar appositeness field marshals owe their rise, cabinets their dissolution, to his character as such, than from their tendency to massacres their carnage, or empires their overthrow. enlarge his mind; and especially because, by affording Yet the reader need not be denied the glow he will ex- exhaustless stores of refined and innocent pleasure, they perience at the story of Thermopyla, Marathon, Leuc-win him away from the haunts of sensuality. "I should tra, or Bunker Hill. All those incidents, too, whether not think the most exalted faculties a gift worthy of grand or minute, which may serve as warnings or as encouragements to posterity, should be placed in bold relief, and their influence on the current of events, clearly displayed. Numberless opportunities will occur, for impressing upon the minds of young republicans, truths which deeply concern the responsibilities involved in that name: the artifices of demagogues-the danger, in a democracy, of trusting implicitly to the honesty and skill of public agents-the worthlessness of popularity, unless it be "the popularity which follows, not that taken, he says, from "Webster's Elements of General Knowledge." • Article 1 § 8. heaven," says Junius, "nor any assistance in their im provement a subject of gratitude to man, if I were not satisfied, that to inform the understanding, corrects and enlarges the heart." Felix Neff, the Alpine pastor, whose ardent, untiring benevolence, ten years ago, wrought what the indolent would deem miracles, in diffusing knowledge, and a love of knowledge, amongst an untutored peasantry, found their indifference towards foreign missions immovable, until they had learned something of geography: but so soon as they had read the Lord Mansfield. The "ardor civium prava jubentium," not less than the vultus instantis tyranni." description of distant countries, and seen them upon the acquaintance with outlines, and general principles. A The physical sciences, shewing the composition and defects of soils, and the modes of remedying those defects--the natures and properties of minerals and vegetables-the modes in which different bodies affect each other--the mechanical powers--the structure of man's own frame, and the causes which benefit or injure it-the utility of these cannot escape any mind. map, they conceived an interest in the people who dwelt quack can use the lancet, and knows it to have been there; and entered warmly into the scheme of benefi- successfully employed for severe contusions and excescence, which before had solicited their attention in vain. sive heat; but does not know the general fact, that un"Their new acquirements," observes Neff, "enlarged der extreme exhaustion, indicated by a suspended pulse, their spirit, and made new creatures of them; seeming stimulants, and not depletives, are proper. Seeing a to triple their very existence." Geometry, he remark-man just fallen from a scaffold, or exhausted with heat ed, also "produced a happy moral development:" and fatigue in the harvest field-his pulse gone-the doubtless by the beauty of its unerring march to truth. quack bleeds him, and the patient dies. Again-a Arithmetic it is superfluous to recommend: but its ad- lounger at judicial trials, having picked up a few legal junct, Algebra, deserves cultivation as an exercise to doctrines and phrases-perhaps being master of a "Henthe analyzing faculties; as an implement, indispensable ing's Justice"-conceives himself a profound jurispruto the prosecution of several other studies; and as open-dent; and besides tiring the ears of all his acquaintance ing a unique and curious field of knowledge to the with technical pedantry, he persuades a credulous neighview. bor, or plunges himself, into a long, expensive, and ruinous law-suit. The worthy Mr. Saddletree, and Poor Peter Peebles,* are masterly pictures of such a personage: pictures, of which few experienced lawyers have not seen originals. The storm so lately (and perhaps even yet) impending from the north, and several other conspicuous ebullitions of fanaticism, are clearly traceable to the perversion of a text† in our Declaration For books, and tracts, and oral lectures for the people, of Independence and Bills of Rights, detached from its there will be no want of materials or models, or even of natural connexion with kindred and qualifying truths, the actual fabrics themselves. The publications of the by minds uninstructed in the general principles of civil British and American Societies for the Diffusion of and political right. The mind which has been accusKnowledge, are mines, in which selection, compilation, tomed only to a microscopic observation of one subject, and imitation, may work with the richest results to this or one set of subjects, is necessarily contracted, fanatigreat cause. Many of these productions, and still cal, and intolerant: as the wrinkled crone, who, during more eminently, the scientific writings of Dr. Frank-a long life, has never passed the hills environing her lin, afford most happy specimens of the style, suited to treatises for popular use: no parade of learning; no long word, where a short will serve the turn; no Latin or Greek derivative, where an Anglo-Saxon is at hand; no technical term, where a popular one can be used. By presenting, in a form thus brief, simple, and attrac-containing mountains, rivers, climates, and cities, such tive, subjects which in their accustomed guise of learn- as her thoughts never conceived, and people with comed and costly quartos or octavos, frighten away the plexions, customs, language, and religion, different from common gaze, as from a Gorgon upon which none might all that she has ever known. But the intellect, that has look, and live, you may insinuate them into every surveyed the outlines and observed the relations of many dwelling, and every mind: the school urchin may find various subjects (even though not thoroughly familiar them neither incomprehensible, nor wearisome; and with any,) resembles the man who by travelling, or even the laboring man be detained from the tippling house, on a map, has traced the boundaries and marked the relaand even for an hour, after the day's toil is over, from tive positions of different countries. Knowing that they his pillow, to snatch a few morsels from the banquet of exist, and are peopled, he readily forms distinct ideas of instruction. their surfaces, and their moral traits: their mountains, Many will cavil at the attempt to disseminate gene-rivers, and cities, their arts, commerce, manners, institurally, so extended a round of knowledge: and if, to es- tions, and wars, rise before his imagination, or are graspcape the charge of impracticability, we say, that our ed by his knowledge: and whatever he hears, he is preaim is to impart merely a slight and general acquaint-pared rationally to credit or reject, to approve or censure, ance with the proposed subjects,-then, sciolism, and smattering, will be imputed to the plan; and Pope's clever lines, so often misapplied, about the intoxicating effect of shallow draughts from the Pierian Spring, will be quoted upon us. Come the objection in prose or in verse, it is entirely fallacious. Learning, either superficial or profound, intoxicates with vanity, only when it is confined to a few. It is by seeing or fancying himself wiser than those around him, that the pedant is puffed up. But now, all the community, male and female, are proposed to be made partakers of knowledge; and cannot be vain, of what all equally possess. Besides-the sort of knowledge that naturally engenders conceit and leads to error, is the partial knowledge of details; not a comprehensive cabin, or heard of any land besides her own province, believes her native hamlet the choicest abode of wisdom and goodness, and its humble church the grandest specimen of architectural magnificence, in the world; and hears with incredulity or horror, of distant countries, as it comports well or ill with probability and with reason. Now, to counteract the one, and to promote the other, of these two conditions of mind, are precisely what is proposed by the advocates of popular instruction. They propose to teach outlines; and carefully to impress the fact, that only outlines are taught: so as to shew the learner, plainly, the precise extent of his knowledge, and (what is yet more important) of his ignorance. It is thus, that, being not "proud that he hath learned so much," but rather "humble that he knows no more," vanity and self-conceit will be most certainly prevented: In "The Heart of Mid Lothian," and "Redgauntlet." "All men are created equal," &c. This principle is, in sub. stance, asserted in the Bill of Rights or Constitution of almost every State in the Union. |