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associations with those regions of the earth respectively, that as little should we have expected any good thing out of either of them, as an ancient Jew did out of Nazareth. Yet, from these very mountains of darkness and valleys of the shadow of death, a light has sprung up, of whose rays we are now glad to borrow.

What would our Pilgrim Fathers have thought of it; what would the Puritan schoolmasters have said to it; what would the founders and patrons of our schools and colleges, whether of the Pilgrim or the Patriot age- the Harvards, the Mathers, the Cheevers, and the Lovells - have said, had it been foretold to them, that no sooner had the trans-Alleghany region of this continent begun to be cleared and settled, and before even the first generation of its emigrant population had passed away, it should be found turning its eyes to find models for institutions of education,-not to the old, time-honored Free Schools of New England, which were the scene of their labors and the subject of their prayers; not even to the older and hardly less honored academies and colleges of old England, the common mother of us all; - but to institutions for public instruction established by the most arbitrary and despotic Governments, and among the most benighted and enslaved peoples of Europe,and should be seen actually sending an embassy across the ocean to obtain the most accurate and detailed information as to their system and discipline? Would they not almost as soon have believed, that the destined dwellers on the banks of the Beautiful River, (as the native American well designated the Ohio,) would have one day imported in the egg a cargo of Hessian flies to feed and fatten on their ripening wheatfields; or that they would have panted themselves to exchange their tempered and genial climate for "the thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," which constitute so large a part of the empire of the Czar!

But there is still another view of the facts to which I have referred, which suggests reflections of a far higher and more important character than either of those which have yet been presented, and which relates not so much to our pride as New Englanders, as to our prosperity and welfare as freemen. We have been accustomed to regard a free school system as the

chief corner-stone of our Republic, and popular education as the only safe and stable basis for popular liberty. So thought our fathers before us, and the principle may be found interwoven in a thousand forms into the very thread and texture of our political institutions. Education, religious and civil, the education of the sanctuary and of the school-house, was, we all know, from the first establishment of these Colonies, a matter in regard to which all property was held in common, and every man bound to contribute to the necessities of every other man; as much so as personal protection, public justice, or any other of the more obvious duties of government, or rights of the governed. "To this celestial and this earthly light," to use the language of Daniel Webster, every man was entitled by the fundamental laws, and as a part of that provision for the security of free men and the maintenance of free institutions, which it was the purpose of those laws to establish. A conscientious scruple of later years, which I am willing to respect in others, even if I do not quite feel the force of it myself, has stricken off religious education from the pay-roll of the State, and left every man not only to consult his own will, but to depend on his own means, in seeking for the light celestial. But the terrestrial light, the education of the week-day and of the earthly man, from which all care of his spiritual nature, it is hoped, is not entirely excluded, is still provided at the public cost, and the Free Common School system is still cherished as sacredly as ever, as the only sure foundation for the Republican fabric.

How is it, then, that we now find the most arbitrary and despotic Governments of the Old World adopting this same system as a security for their own stern dominations, and carrying it into operation at immense expense and upon an unparalleled scale, with as much apparent confidence that it will answer their own tyrannical ends, as if they were only manning a new fleet, or mustering a new standing army? Have we on this side of the waters been all, and all along, mistaken in our estimate of the political consequences of popular education? Were our Puritan Fathers led away by erroneous prepossessions, which the winds and waves of three thousand miles of wintry ocean had not uprooted, or were they only chasing some ignis

fatuus of wilderness origin and growth, when they devoted their earliest attention to the establishment of common schools and colleges? Was it a false philosophy, a misguided foresight, a deluded sagacity, which led the patriot framers of our State Constitution to declare, in the language of John Adams, one of the noblest of their number, that "wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, were necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties," and to make it the constitutional duty "of Legislatures and Magistrates, in all future periods of the Commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them?" Have we, from first to last, been harboring and cherishing in our bosoms an insidious and treacherous foe to our freedom? Has an emissary of despotism, in the borrowed robes of an Angel of Liberty, been admitted unawares to our society and entertainment? Or is Popular Education merely neutral and non-committal in its political tendencies, and are Free Schools utterly indifferent in their influence upon political institutions? Will they serve as well, and may they be relied on as safely, for the bulwarks of an arbitrary and imperious dominion, as for the basis of a free Republican government? Do our enormous annual contributions of time and money to the cause of public instruction afford us no new or additional guaranty for the progress of free principles, and leave our democratic institutions in no less danger of downfall or overthrow? And will the hirelings and mercenaries of Austria and Prussia muster as promptly, and march as steadily, to execute the mandates of individual or of allied monarchs, after they have learned to read and write, as they did before? And the Autocrat of all the Russias - will he sit as easy on his throne of state, and sway his sceptre as unceremoniously over an enlightened, intelligent, and educated people, as he did while they were benighted, degraded, and ignorant?

I know that but one answer would be given to these questions by all whom I address, and I am quite sure that it would be the right answer. But I cannot help thinking that, in view of the events on the other side of the waters to which I have referred, not a few of us may be glad to have the faith that is

in us refreshed, and some of the reasons of that faith newly impressed upon our minds, by dwelling for a few moments on the political bearings of Popular Education, and upon the influence of Free Schools in establishing and supporting Free Govern

ments.

It has often been remarked, that much apparent difference of opinion might be reconciled, and much of angry controversy avoided, if men could agree in advance upon the meaning and definition of the terms, which are employed to designate the subject matter in debate. And we daily observe discussions, which commenced with a formidable array of most opposite and conflicting principles, gradually dwindling down into a mere dispute about words, and ending in an appeal to the last edition of Walker's or Webster's Dictionary. Let me, then, so far provide against any controversy which might originate in a mere disagreement about words, as to state explicitly at the outset my understanding of the phrases, Popular Education and Free Government; and if, in doing so, I shall seem to have settled the whole question, the patience of my hearers will be the sooner relieved.

In attempting to describe Popular Education, I am not about to discuss systems of education. I have no new-fangled theories to advance as to the age at which education should commence, the mode in which it should be pursued, or the matters with which it should deal. The education to which I refer, it is never too early, and never entirely too late, to commence, and towards it there is neither royal road nor railroad which can claim a monopoly of the travel. It is not classical learning. It is not scientific acquirement. It is not a knowledge of dead languages or of living. "Though a linguist (says John Milton) should pride himself to have all the tongues which Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them, as well as the words and the lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only." But it is not the study of these solid things either, which constitutes the education which I have in my mind. It is not the science of elements, any more than of alphabets. It is not the knowledge

of the materials of the earth, the powers of the air, or the motions of the stars. In reference to the education of which I speak,

"Those earthly godfathers of heaven's lights

That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are."

Let me not seem to speak lightly of the study of languages or the science of astronomy. The power and presence of the Spirit of Truth were once attested by the possession of tongues; and it is an attribute to God himself that "he telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names." I desire only to convey in the most emphatic manner the idea, that in speaking of education, I refer not to modes, but to results; not to instruments, but to operations; not to ways, but to ends. Reading and writing are excellent accomplishments; but the time has gone by when they could save a man's neck from the gallows; and they never did, and never can, establish or maintain the life and liberty of a nation. The ancient languages are golden keys for unlocking the stores of wit and eloquence and poesy; but evil spirits have long since refused to be exorcised by a sentence of Latin, and the words of life may as certainly be found in a vernacular Testament, or even in John Eliot's Indian version, as if they were hunted for in the original Greek, or in the Complutensian Polyglott itself. A man's memory may be tasked and strained till it becomes a perfect encyclopædia, hav. ing the whole circle of science in its grasp, paged and indexed for use. A man's fancy may be chafed and charged till it will sparkle and lighten of its own mere exuberance and incontinency. A man's observation may be quickened and informed till it can read and translate at sight every sign and character and composition of Nature and of Art. And beautiful ornaments to a true education do such faculties form in himself, and powerful aids in imparting a true education to others. But they neither constitute that education, nor are necessary either to its attainment or communication. Wretched, indeed, would be the lot of the every-day man, if his happiness, his advancement, his liberty, depended on powers like these. The doctrine that would

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