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7th December, 1827. A letter from home affords me the satisfaction of knowing that our friends generally continue to enjoy good health, and are subject to none other than the ordinary ills of life, such as cut-throat weather, squalling brats, or a twinge or two of gout or rheumatism. These are evils which humanity is decreed to suffer throughout the world; but in Mexico we are more exempt from most of them than elsewhere. The sun nowshinestwelve hours of every day, and either the moon or stars give light to the other twelve. Such will the weather continue to be until May or June, when the rains fall with such regularity and certainty, that very slight observation enables us to know when to go out, or to shelter ourselves. The mornings now are only a little cool, although we are in mid-winter; and our tables are supplied with fruit as bountifully as in the months of July and August. Our other ills are in like manner trivial. We are sometimesennuyésfor want of society, but books, and sometimes a game of chess, enable us to live without being driven to the commission of suicide. And as adernier resort, we throw ourselves into the arms of Morpheus, this being the peculiar delightful climate for sleep—no mosquitos, nor extremes of heat or cold. The thermometer ordinarily ranges at about 70° of Fahrenheit.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
ROME. A Lady's apartment, with a window open and looking into a garden. Lalage, in deep mourning, reading at a table on which lie some books and a hand mirror. In the back ground Jacinta (a servant maid) leans carelessly upon a chair.
Lalage. Jacinta! is it thou?
Jacinta(pertly.) Yes, Ma'am, I'm here.
Lalage. I did not know, Jacinta, you were in waiting.Sit down!—let not my presence trouble you—Sit down!—for I am humble, most humble.
Jacinta(aside.) 'Tis time.
(Jacinta seats herself in a side-long manner upon the chair, resting her elbows upon the back, and regarding her mistress with a contemptuous look. Lalage continues to read.)
Lalage. "It in another climate, so he said,Bore a bright golden flower, but not i' this soil!"
(pauses—turns over some leaves, and resumes.)
"No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower—But Ocean ever to refresh mankindBreathes the shrill spirit of the western wind."Oh, beautiful!—most beautiful!—how likeTo what my fevered soul doth dream of Heaven!O happy land! (pauses.) She died!—the maiden died!O still more happy maiden who could'st die!Jacinta!
(Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes.)
Again!—a similar taleTold of a beauteous dame beyond the sea!Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of the play—"She died full young"—one Bossola answers him—"I think not so!—her infelicitySeem'd to have years too many"—Ah luckless lady!Jacinta! (still no answer.)Here's a far sterner storyBut like—oh! very like in its despair—Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easilyA thousand hearts—losing at length her own.She died. Thus endeth the history—and her maidsLean over her and weep—two gentle maidsWith gentle names—Eiros and Charmion!Rainbow and Dove!——Jacinta!
Jacinta(pettishly.) Madam, whatisit?
Lalage. Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kindAs go down in the library and bring meThe Holy Evangelists.
Jacinta. Pshaw! (exit.)
Lalage. If there be balmFor the wounded spirit in Gilead it is there!Dew in the night time of my bitter troubleWill there be found—"dew sweeter far than thatWhich hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill."
(re-enter Jacinta, and throws a volume on the table.)
There, ma'am's, the book. Indeed she is very troublesome. (aside.)
Lalage(astonished.) What didst thou say Jacinta? Have I done aughtTo grieve thee or to vex thee?—I am sorry.For thou hast served me long and ever beenTrust-worthy and respectful. (resumes her reading.)
Jacinta. I can't believeShe has any more jewels—no—no—she gave me all. (aside.)
Lalage. What didst thou say, Jacinta? Now I bethink meThou hast not spoken lately of thy wedding.How fares good Ugo?—and when is it to be?Can I do aught?—is there no farther aidThou needest, Jacinta?
Jacinta. Is there nofartheraid?That's meant for me. (aside.) I'm sure, Madam, you need notBe always throwing those jewels in my teeth.
Lalage. Jewels! Jacinta,—now indeed, Jacinta,I thought not of the jewels.
Jacinta. Oh! perhaps not!But then I might have sworn it. After all,There's Ugo says the ring is only paste,For he's sure the Count Castiglione neverWould have given a real diamond to such as you;And at the best I'm certain, Madam, you cannotHave use for jewelsnow. But I might have sworn it. (exit.)
(Lalage bursts into tears and leans her head upon the table—after a short pause raises it.)
Lalage. Poor Lalage!—and is it come to this?Thy servant maid!—but courage!—'tis but a viperWhom thou hast cherished to sting thee to the soul! (taking up the mirror.)Ha! here at least's a friend—too much a friendIn earlier days—a friend will not deceive thee.Fair mirror and true! now tell me (for thou canst)A tale—a pretty tale—and heed thou notThough it be rife with woe. It answers me.It speaks of sunken eyes, and wasted cheeks,And Beauty long deceased—remembers meOf Joy departed—Hope, the Seraph Hope,Inurned and entombed!—now, in a toneLow, sad, and solemn, but most audible,Whispers of early grave untimely yawningFor ruin'd maid. Fair mirror and true!—thou liest not!Thouhast no end to gain—no heart to break—Castiglione lied who said he loved——Thou true—he false!—false!—false!
(while she speaks a monk enters her apartment, and approaches unobserved.)
Monk. Refuge thou hastSweet daughter! in Heaven. Think of eternal things!Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray!
Lalage(arising hurriedly.) Icannotpray!—My soul is at war with God!The frightful sounds of merriment belowDisturb my senses—go! I cannot pray—The sweet airs from the garden worry me!Thy presence grieves me—go!—thy priestly raimentFills me with dread—thy ebony crucifixWith horror and awe!
Monk. Think of thy precious soul!
Lalage. Think of my early days!—think of my fatherAnd mother in Heaven! think of our quiet home,And the rivulet that ran before the door!Think of my little sisters!—think of them!And think of me!—think of my trusting loveAnd confidence—his vows—my ruin—think! think!Of my unspeakable misery!——begone!Yet stay! yet stay!—what was it thou saidst of prayerAnd penitence? Didst thou not speak of faithAnd vows before the throne?
Monk. I did.
Lalage. 'Tis well.Thereisa vow were fitting should be made—A sacred vow, imperative, and urgent,A solemn vow!
Monk. Daughter, this zeal is well!
Lalage. Father, this zeal is any thing but well!Hast thou a crucifix fit for this thing?A crucifix whereon to registerA vow—a vow. (he hands her his own.)Not that—Oh! no!—no!—no! (shuddering.)Not that! Not that!—I tell thee, holy man,Thy raiments and thy ebony cross affright me!Stand back! I have a crucifix myself,—Ihave a crucifix! Methinks 'twere fitting The deed—the vow—the symbol of the deed—And the deed's register should tally, father! (draws a cross-handled dagger and raises it on high.)Behold the cross wherewith a vow like mineIs written in Heaven!
Monk. Thy words are madness, daughter!And speak a purpose unholy—thy lips are livid—Thine eyes are wild—tempt not the wrath divine—Pause ere too late—oh be not—be not rash!Swear not the oath—oh swear it not!
Lalage. 'Tis sworn!
ROME. An apartment in a palace. Politian and Baldazzar, his friend.
Baldazzar.——Arouse thee now, Politian!Thou must not—nay indeed, indeed, thou shalt notGive way unto these humors. Be thyself!Shake off the idle fancies that beset thee,And live, for now thou diest!
Politian. Not so, Baldazzar,I live—I live.
Baldazzar. Politian, it doth grieve meTo see thee thus.
Politian. Baldazzar, it doth grieve meTo give thee cause for grief, my honored friend.Command me, sir, what wouldst thou have me do?At thy behest I will shake off that natureWhich from my forefathers I did inherit,Which with my mother's milk I did imbibe,And be no more Politian, but some other.Command me, sir.
Baldazzar. To the field then—to the field,To the senate or the field.
Politian. Alas! Alas!There is an imp would follow me even there!There is an imphathfollowed me even there!There is——what voice was that?
Baldazzar. I heard it not.I heard not any voice except thine own,And the echo of thine own.
Politian. Then I but dreamed.
Baldazzar. Give not thy soul to dreams: the camp—the courtBefit thee—Fame awaits thee—Glory calls—And her the trumpet-tongued thou wilt not hearIn hearkening to imaginary soundsAnd phantom voices.
Politian. Itisa phantom voice,Didst thou not hear itthen?
Baldazzar. I heard it not.
Politian. Thou heardst it not!——Baldazzar, speak no moreTo me, Politian, of thy camps and courts.Oh! I am sick, sick, sick, even unto death,Of the hollow and high sounding vanitiesOf the populous Earth! Bear with me yet awhile!We have been boys together—school-fellows—And now are friends—yet shall not be so long.For in the eternal city thou shalt do meA kind and gentle office, and a Power—A Power august, benignant, and supreme—Shall then absolve thee of all farther dutiesUnto thy friend.
Baldazzar. Thou speakest a fearful riddleIwillnot understand.
Politian. Yet now as FateApproaches, and the hours are breathing low,The sands of Time are changed to golden grains,And dazzle me, Baldazzar. Alas! Alas!Icannotdie, having within my heartSo keen a relish for the beautifulAs hath been kindled within it. Methinks the airIs balmier now than it was wont to be—Rich melodies are floating in the winds—A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth—And with a holier lustre the quiet moonSitteth in Heaven.—Hist! hist! thou canst not sayThou hearest notnow, Baldazzar!
Baldazzar. Indeed I hear not.
Politian. Not hear it!—listen now,—listen!—the faintest soundAnd yet the sweetest that ear ever heard!A lady's voice!—and sorrow in the tone!Baldazzar, it oppresses me like a spell!Again!—again!—how solemnly it fallsInto my heart of hearts! that voice—that voiceI surely never heard—yet it were wellHad I but heard it with its thrilling tonesIn earlier days!
Baldazzar. I myself hear it now.Be still!—the voice, if I mistake not greatly,Proceeds from yonder lattice—which you may seeVery plainly through the window—that lattice belongs,Does it not? unto this palace of the Duke.The singer is undoubtedly beneathThe roof of his Excellency—and perhapsIs even that Alessandra of whom he spokeAs the betrothed of Castiglione,His son and heir.
Politian. Be still!—it comes again!
Voice(very faintly.)And is thy heart so strongAs for to leave me thusWho hath loved thee so longIn wealth and wo among?And is thy heart so strongAs for to leave me thus?Say nay—say nay!
Baldazzar. The song is English, and I oft have heard itIn merry England—never so plaintively—Hist—hist! it comes again!
Voice(more loudly.)Is it so strongAs for to leave me thus,Who hath loved thee so longIn wealth and wo among?And is thy heart so strongAs for to leave me thus?Say nay—say nay!
Baldazzar. 'Tis hush'd and all is still!
Politian. All isnotstill.
Baldazzar. Let us go down.
Politian. Go down, Baldazzar! go!
Baldazzar. The hour is growing late—the Duke awaits us,—Thy presence is expected in the hallBelow. What ails thee, Earl Politian?
Voice(distinctly.)Who hath loved thee so long,In wealth and wo among,And is thy heart so strong?Say nay!—say nay!
Baldazzar. Let us descend!—'tis time. Politian, giveThese fancies to the wind. Remember, pray,Your bearing lately savored much of rudenessUnto the Duke. Arouse thee! and remember!
Politian. Remember? I do. Lead on! Idoremember. (going.)Let us descend. Baldazzar! Oh I would give,Freely would give the broad lands of my earldomTo look upon the face hidden by yon lattice,To gaze upon that veiled face, and hearOnce more that silent tongue.
Baldazzar. Let me beg you, sir,Descend with me—the Duke may be offended.Let us go down I pray you.
Voice(loudly.) Say nay!—say nay!
Politian(aside.) 'Tis strange!—'tis very strange—methought the voiceChimed in with my desires and bade me stay! (approaching the window.)Sweet voice! I heed thee, and will surely stay.Now be this Fancy, by Heaven, or be it Fate,Still will I not descend. Baldazzar, makeApology unto the Duke for me,I go not down to-night.
Baldazzar. Your lordship's pleasureShall be attended to. Good night, Politian.
Politian. Good night, my friend, good night.
The Gardens of a Palace—Moonlight. Lalage and Politian.
Lalage. And dost thou speak of loveTome, Politian?—dost thou speak of loveTo Lalage?—ah wo—ah wo is me!This mockery is most cruel—most cruel indeed!
Politian. Weep not! oh, weep not thus—thy bitter tearsWill madden me. Oh weep not, Lalage—Be comforted. I know—I know it all,AndstillI speak of love. Look at me, brightest,And beautiful Lalage, and listen tome!Thou askest me if I could speak of love,Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen.Thou askest me that—and thus I answer thee—Thus on my bended knee I answer thee. (kneeling.)Sweet Lalage, I love thee—love thee—love thee;Thro' good and ill—thro' weal and wo I love thee.Not mother, with her first born on her knee,Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.Not on God's altar, in any time or clime,Burned there a holier fire than burneth nowWithin my spirit for thee. And do I love? (arising.)Even for thy woes I love thee—even for thy woes—Thy beauty and thy woes.
Lalage. Alas, proud Earl,Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!How, in thy father's halls, among the maidensPure and reproachless of thy princely line,Could the dishonored Lalage abide?Thy wife, and with a tainted memory—My seared and blighted name, how would it tallyWith the ancestral honors of thy house,And with thy glory?
Politian. Speak not—speak not of glory!I hate—I loathe the name; I do abhorThe unsatisfactory and ideal thing.Art thou not Lalage and I Politian?Do I not love—art thou not beautiful—What need we more? Ha! glory!—now speak not of it!By all I hold most sacred and most solemn—By all my wishes now—my fears hereafter—By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven—There is no deed I would more glory in,Than in thy cause to scoff at this same gloryAnd trample it under foot. What matters it—What matters it, my fairest, and my best,That we go down unhonored and forgottenInto the dust—so we descend together.Descend together—and then—and then perchance——
Lalage. Why dost thou pause, Politian?
Politian. And then perchanceArise together, Lalage, and roamThe starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,And still——
Lalage. Why dost thou pause, Politian?
Politian. And still together—together.
Lalage. Now Earl of Leicester!Thoulovestme, and in my heart of heartsI feel thou lovest me truly.
Politian. Oh, Lalage!? (throwing himself upon his knee.)And lovest thoume?
Lalage. Hist!—hush! within the gloomOf yonder trees methought a figure past—A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless—Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.? (walks across and returns.)I was mistaken—'twas but a giant boughStirred by the autumn wind. Politian!
Politian. My Lalage—my love! why art thou moved?Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience' self,Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night windIs chilly—and these melancholy boughsThrow over all things a gloom.
Lalage. Politian!Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the landWith which all tongues are busy—a land new found—Miraculously found by one of Genoa—A thousand leagues within the golden west;A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,And mountains, around whose towering summits the windsOf Heaven untrammelled flow—which air to breatheIs Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafterIn days that are to come?
Politian. O, wilt thou—wilt thouFly to that Paradise—my Lalage, wilt thouFly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.And life shall then be mine, for I will liveFor thee, and in thine eyes—and thou shalt beNo more a mourner—but the radiant JoysShall wait upon thee, and the angel HopeAttend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee,And worship thee, and call thee my beloved,My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,My all;—oh, wilt thou—wilt thou, Lalage,Fly thither with me?
Lalage. A deed is to be done—Castiglione lives!
Politian. And he shall die! (exit.)
Lalage(after a pause.) And—he—shall—die!——alas!Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?Where am I?—what was it he said?—Politian!Thouartnot gone—thou art notgone, Politian!Ifeelthou art not gone—yet dare not look,Lest I behold thee not; thoucouldstnot goWith those words upon thy lips—O, speak to me!And let me hear thy voice—one word—one word,To say thou art not gone,—one little sentence,To say how thou dost scorn—how thou dost hateMy womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thouartnot gone—O speak to me! Iknewthou wouldst not go!I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go.Villain, thouartnot gone—thou mockest me!And thus I clutch thee—thus!——He is gone, he is gone—Gone—gone. Where am I?——'tis well—'tis very well!So that the blade be keen—the blow be sure,'Tis well, 'tis very well—alas! alas! (exit.)
Among ridiculous conceits may be selectedpar excellence, the thought of a celebrated Abbé—"that the heart of man being triangular, and the world spherical in form, it was evident that all worldly greatness could not fill the heart of man." The same person concluded, "that since among the Hebrews the same word expresses death and life, (a point only making the difference,) it was therefore plain that there was little difference between life and death." The chief objection to this is, thatnoone Hebrew word signifies life and death.
Delivered before the Institute of Education of Hampden Sidney College, at its Anniversary Meeting, September the 24th, 1835, on the invitation of that body,—by Lucian Minor, Esq. of Louisa.
[Published by request of the Institute.]
[Published by request of the Institute.]
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Institute:
I am to offer you, and this large assembly, some thoughts upon EDUCATION,as a means of preserving the Republican Institutions of our country.
The sentiment of the Roman Senate, who, upon their general's return with the shattered remains of a great army from an almost annihilating defeat, thanked and applauded him fornot despairing of the Republic, has, in later times, been moulded into an apothegm of political morality; and few sayings, of equal dignity, are now more hackneyed, than that "A good citizen willneverdespair of the commonwealth."
I shall hope to escape the anathema, and the charge of disloyalty to our popular institutions, implied in the terms of this apothegm, if I doubt, somewhat, its unqualified truth; when you consider how frequently omens of ruin, overclouding the sky of our country, have constrained the most unquestionable republican patriot's heart to quiver with alarm, if not to sink in despair.
When a factious minority, too strong to be punished as traitors, treasonably refuse to rally under their country's flag, in defence of her rights and in obedience to her laws; when a factious majority, by partial legislation, pervert the government to the ends of self-aggrandizement or tyranny; when mobs dethrone justice, by assuming to be her ministers, and rush madly to the destruction of property or of life; when artful demagogues, playing upon the credulity or the bad passions of a confiding multitude, sway them to measures the most adverse to the public good; or when a popular chief (though he were a Washington) contrives so far to plant his will in the place of law and of policy, that the people approve or condemn both measures and men, mainly if not solely, by his judgment or caprice; and when all history shews these identical causes (the offspring of ignorance and vice) to have overthrown every proud republic of former times;—then, surely, a Marcus Brutus or an Algernon Sidney,—the man whose heart is the most irrevocably sworn to liberty, and whose life, if required, would be a willing sacrifice upon her altars—must find the most gloomy forebodings often haunting his thoughts, and darkening his hopes.
Indeed, at the best, it is no trivial task, to conduct the affairs of a great people. Even in the tiny republics of antiquity, some twenty of which were crowded into a space less than two-thirds of Virginia,—government was no suchsimple machine, as some fond enthusiasts would have us believe it might be. The only very simple form of government, is despotism. There, every question of policy, every complicated problem of state economy, every knotty dispute respecting the rights or interests of individuals or of provinces, is at once solved by the intelligible and irreversiblesic voloof a Nicholas or a Mohammed. But in republics, there are passions to soothe; clashing interests to reconcile; jarring opinions to mould into one result, for the general weal. To effect this, requires extensive and accurate knowledge, supported by all the powers of reasoning and persuasion, in discussing not onlysystemsof measures, but their minutest details, year after year, before successive councils, in successive generations: and supposing themachineryofLegislative,Executive, andJudiciaryto be so simple or so happily adjusted, that an idiot might propel it, and a school-lad with the first four rules of arithmetic—or even "a negro boy with his knife and tally stick"1—might regulate its movements and record their results; still, those other objects demand all the comprehension and energies of no contracted or feeble mind. Nor are these qualities needful only to the actual administrators of the government. Its proprietors, the people, must look both vigilantly and intelligently to its administration: for so liable is power to continual abuse; so perpetually is it tending to steal from them to their steward or their agent; that if they either want the requisite sagacity to judge of his acts, or substitute a blind confidence in him for that wise distrust, which all experience proves indispensable to the preservation of power in the people,—it will soon betheirpower no longer. A tame surrender of it to him is inevitable, unless they comprehend the subjects of his action well enough to judge the character of his acts: unless they know something of that vast and diversified field of policy, of duty, and of right, in which they have set him to labor. Yes—in its least perplexed form, on its most diminutive scale, the task of self-government is a perilously difficult one; difficult, in proportion to its nobleness: calling for the highest attributes of the human character. What, then, must it be, in a system so complex as ours? Two sets of public functionaries, to appoint and superintend: two sets of machinery to watch, and keep in order: each of them not only complicated within itself, but constantly tending to clash with the other. Viewing the State government alone, how many fearful dissensions have arisen, as to the extent of its powers, and the propriety of its acts! Turning then to the Federal government, how much more awful and numerous controversies, respecting both the constitutionality and expediency of its measures, have, within half a century, convulsed the whole Union! No less than three conjunctures within that time, threatening us with disunion and civil war; not to mention the troubles of the elder Adams' administration, the conspiracy of Burr, the Missouri dispute, or the cloud (now, I trust, about to disperse) which has just been lowering in our northern sky. To the complexity of our two governments, separately considered, add the delicate problems daily springing from their relations with one another, and from the mutual relations of the twenty-four states—disputes concerning territory; claims urged by citizens of one, against another state; or wrongs done to some states, by citizens and residents of others—all these, and innumerable other questions, involving each innumerable ramifications, continually starting up to try the wisdom and temper, if not to mar the peace, of our country;—and say, if there are words forcible and emphatic enough to express the need, that thePOPULAR WILL, which supremely controls this labyrinthine complication of difficulties, should be enlightened by knowledge, tempered by kindness, and ruled by justice?
1Mr. Randolph's Speech in the Virginia Convention, November, 1829.
Gentlemen, when such dangers hedge our political edifice; when we recollect the storms which have already burst upon it, and that, although it has survived 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 "neverto 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?
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 happiness 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!
Nothing—I scruple not to avow—it has been my thought for years—nothing but my reliance on the efficacy of this precept, prevents my being, at this instant,a monarchist. Did I not, with burning confidence, believe 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 no monarchist: makes me, I trust, a truewhig;not in the party acceptation of the day, but in the sense, employed by Jefferson, of one whotrusts and cherishes the people.2Throughout his life, we find that great statesman insisting uponpopular instructionas an inseparable requisite to his belief in the permanency of any popular government: "Ignorance and bigotry," said he, "like other insanities, are incapable of self-government." His authority might be fortified by those of Sidney, Montesquieu, and of all who have written extensively or luminously upon free government: but this is no time for elaborate quotations; and indeed why cite authorities, to prove what is palpable to the glance?
2"The parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats—Côté droiteandcôté gauche—Ultras and Radicals—Serviles and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man, fears the people, and is a tory by nature. The healthy, strong, and bold, cherishes them, and is a whig by nature."Jefferson.
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 safely relied upon, to save her from the dangers that hem round a democracy, unsupported by popular knowledge and virtue. Cyrus the Great, when a boy, among his 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 popular education, but with some which have outstript us in that march of true glory.3
3Montesquieu, mentioning the adoption, by the Romans, of an improvedbucklerfrom a conquered nation, remarks, that the chief secret of Roman greatness was,their renouncing any usage of their own, the moment they found a better one. ("Ils ont toujours renoncé à leurs usages, sitot qu'ils en ont trouvé de meilleurs.")Grandeur et Decadence des Romains—Chap.1.
TheCommon-schoolsystem 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, calledtownships,—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 eachneighborhoodin the township, before it can receive any part of this joint sum, must organize itself as aschool 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 alike, are admitted without charge. Mark the fruits of this system. In 1832, there were in the state 508,878 children; of whom 494,959 wereregular 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 nearly the whole expense of their schools; and the organization is in other respects less perfect than in New York. In each, however, aboutONE-FOURTHof the whole populationis receiving instruction for a considerable part of the year; and in Massachusetts, in 1832, there werebutTENpersons between the ages of 14 and 21, who could not read and write.
Connecticut, with a school fund yielding 180,000 dollars annually, and with common schools established by law in every township, finds their efficacy in a great degree marred by a single error in her plan. This error is, thatthe whole expense is defrayed by the state. In consequence of this, the people take little interest in the schools; and the children are sent so irregularly, as to derive a very insignificant amount of beneficial instruction: so clearly is it shewn, that agratuity, orwhat seemsto be one, is but lightly valued. The statesmen of Connecticut, convinced that the only method of rousing the people from their indifference, is to make them contribute something for the schools in their own immediate neighborhood, and so become solicitous toget 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.
PRUSSIAhas a system, strikingly analogous to that of New York; and in some respects, superior to it. As in New York, the superintendence of popular education is entrusted to a distinct branch of the government; to a gradation of salaried officers, whose whole time is employed in regulating the courses of study, compiling or selecting books, examining teachers, and inspecting the schools. At suitable intervals, are schools expresslyfor the instruction of teachers:of which, in 1831, there existed thirty-three—supplying a stock of instructors, accomplished in all the various knowledge taught in the Prussian schools. In no country on earth—little as we might imagine it—is there probably so well taught a population as in Prussia. Witness the fact, that in 1831, out of 2,043,000 children in the kingdom, 2,021,000 regularly attended the common schools: leaving but 22,000 to be taught at their homes or in private academies.4France, in 1833, adopted the Prussian plan, with effects already visible in the habits and employments of her people; and similar systems have long existed in Germany, and even in Austria. The schools for training teachers (called, in France and Germany,normalschools) pervade all these countries.
4The 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 theinterestof her people in their schools.
In England, government has yet done little towards educating the common people: but Scotland has long5enjoyedparish schoolsequalled 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."
5Ever since 1646, except 36 years, embracing the tyrannical and worthless reigns of Charles II and James II.
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 deficiencies 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 thecommon-school systems of the northern states, is, thattheytake inALLchildren: while we aim to instruct only the children of thepoor; literary paupers. We thus at once create two causes of failure: first,the slight value which men set upon what costs them nothing, as was evinced in the case of Connecticut; second,the mortification to pride(an honest though mistaken pride,) in being singled out as an object of charity.6As if these fatal errors had not sufficiently ensured the impotence of the scheme, the schools themselves are the least efficient that could be devised. Instead of teachers retained expressly for the purpose,—selected, after strict examination into their capacities, and vigilantly superintended afterwards, by competent judges—the poor children areenteredby the neighboring commissioner (often himself entirely unqualified either to teach or to direct teaching,) in the private school which chance, or the teacher's unfitness for any other employment, combined always with cheapness of price, may have already established nearest at hand. There, the littleprotegéof the commonwealth is thrown amongst pupils, whose parents pay for them and give some heed to their progress; and having no friend to see that he is properly instructed—mortified by the humiliating name ofpoor 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.
6"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 notbeen to schoolnow 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,thatwas 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 scholars, and those who paid." Similar testimony as to such schools may be obtained of hundreds.
Observe now, I pray you, how precisely the results agree with what might have been foretold, of such a system. In 1833, nearly 33,000poor children(literary paupers) were found in 100 counties of Virginia; of whom but 17,081attended school at all: and these 17,081 attended on an average, butSIXTY-FIVE DAYS OF THE YEAR, EACH! The average oflearningacquired 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 thereasonableattainments 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 inbusinesstransactions, 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 thewhite adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, at twenty or thirty thousand.And of many who can read, how contracted the range of intellect! The mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, all unexplored, though presented hourly to the eye; the glorious heavens, their grandeur, their distances, and the laws of their motion, unthought of; man himself—his structure, so fearful and so wonderful—those traits in his bodily and mental frame, attention to which would the most essentially conduce to bodily and mental health—all unnoted; History, Geography,tabulæ rasæto them! And for political knowledge, upon which we of Virginia mainly pride ourselves—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, whereconstructionhas been wont to expatiate, and you will find him just able to declarefororagainstthis 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 thepopular will:and it is the voice prompted by this will, that is called "The voice of God!"
Do not misapprehend me. Never would I have the voice of the people other than "the voice of God"—other than all-powerful—within its appropriate sphere. I am as loyal to their sovereignty as the most devout of their flatterers can be: and it is from my desire to see it perpetuated, that I speak out these unpalatable truths. Some roughness of handling is often necessary to heal a wound. The people, like other sovereigns, are sometimes 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?
Sagacious men have not been wanting among us, to see the radical defects of our primary school system: and in 1829, the late Mr. Fitzhugh7of Fairfax, stimulated the Legislature to a feeble effort towards correcting them, byempoweringthe school commissioners of any county to lay it off into districts of not less than three nor more than seven miles square; and to pay, out of the public fund,two-fifthsof the sum requisite for building a school house, and half a teacher's salary, for any one of those districts, whenever its inhabitants, byvoluntary subscription, should raise the residue necessary for these purposes: and the schools thus established were to be open, gratuitously, alike to rich and poor. But thepermissivephraseology of this statute completely neutralized its effect. It might have been foreseen, and itwasforeseen, thatempoweringthe commissioners to act, and leaving the rest tovoluntary contributions, would be unavailing, where the workings of the school system had so long been regarded with apathy. The statute has been acted upon, so far as I have learned, in butthreecounties of the State; remaining, as to the other 107, a dead letter. I have the strongest warrant—that ofactual experiment, in New York and in Massachusetts—for saying, that had the lawcommandedthe commissioners to lay off districts in all counties where the census shewed a sufficiently dense white population; and had it then organized in the districts some local authorities, whosedutyit should be to levy the needful amount upon their people;—I should have been saved the ungracious task of reproaching my country with her want of parental care; and Virginia would now be striding onward, speedily to recover the ground she has lost in the career of true greatness.
7William 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.
If a sense of interest, and of duty, do not prompt her people, and her legislature, immediately, to supply defects so obvious, to correct evils so glaring; surely, very shame at the contemplation of her inferiority to those, 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 tonormal schools(for training teachers,) an able writer in the Edinburgh Review (to which8I 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 theart of instruction;to be called the professorship ofDidactics. Such a chair, ably filled, would be invaluable for multiplying enlightened teachers, and for enhancing the dignity of that under-estimated pursuit. Conjointly with the normal schools, it would soon ensure an abundant supply of instructors for all the common schools.
8Nos. 116, 117—July and October, 1833—reviewing several works ofM. Cousin, who went as commissioner from France, to explore and report upon the Prussian and German systems of public instruction.
The kinds of knowledgewhich should be studied in the schools, and diffused by books, tracts, and oral lectures, among the people, form an important topic of consideration. It is not for me, at least now and here, to obtrude 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 betweenpopular education, andpopular government.
Foremost of these, is the subject of Constitutional Law, and Political Right: something of which might be taught, even in childhood. If the children of Rome were obliged, at school, to lay up in memory the laws of the Twelve Tables, with all their ferocious absurdities; how much more should the children of our country learn those fundamental laws, which guarantee to them the noble inheritance of a rational and virtuous freedom! Even to very young minds, the structure and powers of our two governments may be rendered intelligible by familiar and impartial treatises, with clear oral explanations. The merit of impartiality in these political lessons, is illustrated by the odiousness of a departure from it, which startled me the other day, in reading theTHIRTY-FIFTH EDITIONof a popular and in other respects an excellent History of the United States,9designed for schools; where that section10of the Federal Constitution which declares the powers of Congress, is presented thus: "The Congress of the United States shall have power to make and enforceall laws which are necessary toTHE GENERAL WELFARE—AS to lay and collect taxes," &c.—going on to enumerate the specified powers, asmere examplesof 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 doctrine 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 theletterof 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 them: a saying, which, by being taken unqualifiedly as at all times placingthe majorityabove the Constitution and Laws, has repeatedly caused both to be outraged. Witness the "New Court Law" of Kentucky, in 1825; and a very similar act passed by Congress, in 1801. The prevalent opinions, that parties, and party spirit, are salutary in a republic; that every citizen is in duty bound to join one or the other party; and that he ought togo with his party, in all measures, whether they be intrinsically proper or otherwise; if not 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.
9By Charles A. Goodrich. The abstract of the Constitution is taken, he says, from "Webster's Elements of General Knowledge."
10Article 1 § 8.
Without expending a word upon that trite theme, theutility of historyto all who have any concern in government, 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 well-timed flattery—the lap-dog saved—the favorite's intrigue—the priest's resentment or ambition—to which field marshals owe their rise, cabinets their dissolution, massacres their carnage, or empires their overthrow. Yet the reader need not be denied the glow he will experience at the story of Thermopylæ, Marathon, Leuctra, or Bunker Hill. All those incidents, too, whether 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, oftrustingimplicitly to the honesty and skill of public agents—the worthlessness of popularity, unless it be "the popularity whichfollows, not that which isrun after"11—the importance of learning to resist the erring impulses of a misguided multitude, not less than the unrighteous mandates of a frowning tyrant12—the ease, so often exemplified, with which a people may be duped by theformsof freedom, long after the substance is gone—the incredible aptitude ofexampleto becomeprecedent, and ofprecedentto ripen intolaw, until usurpation is established upon the ruins of liberty—and the difference betweentrueandfalseGREATNESS, so little appreciated by the mass of mankind. This last point 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.
11Lord Mansfield.
12The "ardor civium prava jubentium," not less than the "vultus instantis tyranni."
To renderPolitical Economyintelligible to a moderate 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.
Practical Morals—I mean that department, which teaches, andhabituatesus, to behave justly and kindly to our fellow creatures—will ever be poorly taught by dry precepts and formal essays. No vehicle of moral instruction is comparable to the striking narrative. How is it possible for any school-boy to rob an orchard, after having read Miss Edgeworth's "Tarlton?"—or to practise unfairness in any bargain, when he has glowed at the integrity of Francisco, in purposely shewing thebruised sideof his melon to a purchaser? or not to loathe party spirit, when he has 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 fraternal love, engrained into his very soul? Or how can 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?
Other branches of knowledge are desirable for the republican citizen, less from any peculiar appositeness to his character as such, than from their tendency to enlarge his mind; and especially because, by affording exhaustless stores of refined and innocent pleasure, they win him away from the haunts of sensuality. "I should not think the most exalted faculties a gift worthy of heaven," says Junius, "nor any assistance in their improvement a subject of gratitude to man, if I were not satisfied, thatto 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 towardsforeign missionsimmovable, until they had learned something ofgeography:but so soon as they had read thedescription of distant countries, and seen them upon the map, they conceived an interest in the people who dwelt there; and entered warmly into the scheme of beneficence, which before had solicited their attention in vain. "Their new acquirements," observes Neff, "enlarged their spirit, and made new creatures of them; seeming to triple their very existence." Geometry, he remarked, also "produced a happy moral development:" doubtless by the beauty of its unerring march to truth. Arithmetic it is superfluous to recommend: but its adjunct, Algebra, deserves cultivation as an exercise to the analyzing faculties; as an implement, indispensable to the prosecution of several other studies; and as opening a unique and curious field of knowledge to the view.
Thephysical 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.
Forbooks, andtracts, andoral lectures for the people, there will be no want of materials or models, or even of the actual fabrics themselves. The publications of the British and American Societies for the Diffusion of Knowledge, are mines, in which selection, compilation, and imitation, may work with the richest results to this great cause. Many of these productions, and still more eminently, the scientific writings of Dr. Franklin, 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 attractive, subjects which in their accustomed guise of learned and costly quartos or octavos, frighten away the common gaze, as from a Gorgon upon which none might look, and live, you may insinuate them into every dwelling, and every mind: the school urchin may find them neither incomprehensible, nor wearisome; and the laboring man be detained from the tippling house, and even for an hour, after the day's toil is over, from his pillow, to snatch a few morsels from the banquet of instruction.
Many will cavil at the attempt to disseminate generally, so extended a round of knowledge: and if, to escape the charge ofimpracticability, we say, that our aim is to impart merely a slight and general acquaintance with the proposed subjects,—then,sciolism, andsmattering, will be imputed to the plan; and Pope's clever lines, so often misapplied, about theintoxicating 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 thepartialknowledge ofdetails;not a comprehensive acquaintance withoutlines, andgeneral principles. A quack can use the lancet, and knows it to have been successfully employed for severe contusions and excessive heat; but does not know thegeneralfact, that under extreme exhaustion, indicated by a suspended pulse, stimulants, and not depletives, are proper. Seeing a man just fallen from a scaffold, or exhausted with heat and fatigue in the harvest field—his pulse gone—the quack bleeds him, and the patient dies. Again—a lounger at judicial trials, having picked up a few legal doctrines and phrases—perhaps being master of a "Hening's Justice"—conceives himself a profound jurisprudent; and besides tiring the ears of all his acquaintance with technical pedantry, he persuades a credulous neighbor, or plunges himself, into a long, expensive, and ruinous law-suit. The worthy Mr. Saddletree, and Poor Peter Peebles,13are 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 text14in our Declaration of Independence and Bills of Rights, detached from its natural connexion with kindred and qualifying truths, by minds uninstructed in thegeneral principlesof civil and political right. The mind which has been accustomed only to a microscopic observation of one subject, or one set of subjects, is necessarily contracted, fanatical, and intolerant: as the wrinkled crone, who, during a long life, has never passed the hills environing her 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, containing mountains, rivers, climates, and cities, such as her thoughts never conceived, and people with complexions, customs, language, and religion, different from all that she has ever known. But the intellect, that has surveyed the outlines and observed the relations of many various subjects (even though not thoroughly familiar with any,) resembles the man who by travelling, or even on a map, has traced the boundaries and marked the relative positions of different countries. Knowing thatthey exist, andare peopled, he readily forms distinct ideas of their surfaces, and their moral traits: their mountains, rivers, and cities, their arts, commerce, manners, institutions, and wars, rise before his imagination, or are grasped by his knowledge: and whatever he hears, he is prepared rationally to credit or reject, to approve or censure, 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 teachoutlines;and carefully to impress the fact, thatonly outlines are taught:so as to shew the learner, plainly, the precise extent of his knowledge, and (what is yet more important) of hisignorance. 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:that a wise doubt of his own infallibility will make him tolerant of dissent from his opinions: that he will be prepared at all times to extend his acquisitions easily and judiciously, and to connect them well with previous acquisitions—proving how truly Blackstone has said, in paraphrase of Cicero,15"the sciences aresocial, and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other:" in short, that he will approach most nearly to that "healthful, well proportioned" expansion of intellect and liberality of character, which Locke16terms alarge, sound, roundabout sense. In this point of view, it will be found that "a little learning is"not"a dangerous thing."
13In "The Heart of Mid Lothian," and "Redgauntlet."
14"All men are created equal," &c. This principle is, in substance, asserted in the Bill of Rights or Constitution of almost every State in the Union.
15——"omnes artes, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter sese continentur."Orat. pro Arch. Poet.
16Conduct of the Understanding.
I am deeply sensible, that I have left untouched many topics, even more important and more pertinent to the main theme of my remarks, than some which I have discussed. Indeed, so wide and so varied is that main theme, that I have found myself greatly embarrassed in selecting from the numerous particulars which solicited my regard on every hand. I have not presumed to offer any fully rounded plan, of that legislative action which is so imperiously demanded by the public weal, and soon will be, I trust, by the public voice. A few hints, are all that seemed to become me, or indeed that could well be crowded into my brief share of this day's time. For a plan, both in outline and in detail, I point to our sister states and to the European countries, that have taken the lead of us: and to the virtues and wisdom, by which our statesmen will be able to supply the defects, avoid the errors, and even, I trust, surpass the excellences, of those states and countries. That the Legislature may be wrought up to act, individual influence, and the more powerful influence of associations for the purpose—of whom I deem you, gentlemen, the chief, because the first—must be exerted. You must draw the minds of the constituent body forcibly to the subject. It must be held up in every light; supported by every argument; until the people shall be persuaded but toconsiderit. Then, half the work will have been done. And in its further progress towards consummation—when the illuminating process shall have fairly begun—still it will be for you, gentlemen, and for those whom your example shall call into this field of usefulness with and after you, to exert, with no slumbering energy, the endowments wherewith you and they, are entrusted. You, and they, must become authors, and the prompters of authors. Books, for use in the schools, and cheap, simplifying tracts as well as books for circulation among the people, must be composed, compiled, and selected. Lectures, plain and cheap, and suitably illustrated, must be delivered through town and country. After the example of the good Watts, and of our own many illustrious contemporaries in Britain and America, learned men must oblige Science to lay aside the starched dignity and grand attire, by which hitherto she has awed away the vulgar; and to render herself universally amiable, by being humbly useful: as the wisest17of heathens is said to have "brought Philosophy down from the skies, placed her in human haunts, and made her discourse on the daily concerns of human life."
17Socrates. "Primus ille Philosophiam devocavit e coelo, et in urbibus collocavit, et in domus introduxit; et coegit de vita et moribus, rebusque bonis et malis quærere."Cic. Tuscul. 5.