state of disorder more terrific and appalling, than any despotism that can be imagined. On what, then, rest our hopes of safety? How are we to be exempt from the common fate of republics? What is to rescue or save us from popular outrage, corruption, anarchy, faction, and misrule, which hurry a people on to ruin more surely and with more inevitable speed, than any regularly established tyranny, however arbitrary it may be, or even if it be of a severe military character? We answer, it is to be done only by the universal diffusion of intelligence. Let government place this within the reach, and, as far as possible, force it upon the attention of every class of youth in the community. We speak not now of the general happiness which it is almost sure to carry with it; but it is the only thing which can prepare men for the enjoyment of liberty, and secure to them the possession of it. An ignorant people can never govern themselves. It requires no small share of intelligence to know what true political liberty is, how far it may be extended, and where it must stop. An ignorant people can never be a free people. It has been every where found, that, when unrestrained by absolute authority, they naturally press on to licentiousness, a state more degrading than servitude, until, weary of the fruitless exercise of their own destructive powers, they are glad to lay them down at the feet of some favorite usurper, who has won them by the easy arts of popular intrigue; and the yoke, which such a people tend voluntarily to assume, is incomparably more oppressive and galling than any which mere despotic sovereignty could possibly impose upon them. Much has been written about the checks and balances in our frame of government working miracles in its support, and securing us forever against its decline. But how is this? We now believe the only good effect of them is to retard the progress of legislation, so as to let light and intelligence come in. Surely there can be no conflicting interests necessarily interwoven in these several branches of authority. They are all agents for, and representatives of the great mass of the community who choose them. The senate of Massachusetts, it is true, is said to be founded on wealth, in order to protect it from violence and unjust appropriation; yet who does not perceive this to be in a great measure nominal? It ought not to have, and we hope it may never have a constant influence in regulating the measures of legislation, or in giving a tone to the laws. If there be any such influence springing from it, we believe it to be often directly the opposite of what was originally intended. The senate may become at some day the representative of the laboring classes purely; for wherever riches are accumulating, the population of the poorer classes is increasing and crowding together in still greater proportion, and the wealthy, who are not the only voters, may be far out-numbered. So that, when competition for superiority shall actually arise between these rival classes, we may depend upon it, that the commons, who can very easily rally to act in concert in such places, will send their own tribunes to the capitol to represent them; and we have some slight experience to show us, how possible and indeed practicable all this is. have not much to hope, then, from our checks and balances alone. It is an intelligent and enlightened community, knowing their own rights and respecting the rights of others, which must make those effectual, and to which we are to look for the protection and durability of our political institutions. We It was not our intention to go into an argument in favor of free schools as the instruments of popular education, because we believe their importance is generally every where acknowledged, although they have ceased to awaken that lively interest which they most truly deserve, and which is indispensably necessary in order to make them as extensively useful as they may and ought to be. But there is one point touched upon by Mr. Carter, which we must bring fully before our readers, for it cannot be too often repeated; and that is, the exact coincidence of these institutions with all our purest and best republican feelings. Nothing can more entirely harmonize with them. Those feelings may, and ought to be implanted early in the mind of childhood. They will then be fixed at a time, when impressions are the most deep and durable. If our free schools were raised in public estimation, as we shall soon see may be done very easily and with little additional expense, the children of the affluent, of those in easy circumstances, and of the poor and humble, will be brought together, and taught to associate, and mingle intimately with each other on the most perfect level of equality, where merit alone forms the title to rank. This will be sure to make them true to their political institutions. We are all republicans by nature; our education from infancy may be made to keep us so. ciples thus early imbibed are not speedily to be unsettled. national condition may change, our form of government may change, our political character may also in some respects change, but we shall be a republic still, essentially and for ever. With all their defects, the schools of which we speak, have in fact drawn forth talents from the humblest stations, and given them the first impulse, which ultimately carried them to the highest and most elevated. They tend to make the proud and wealthy willing that Prin Our the people should rule, and convince the people, that the proud and wealthy can in no way necessarily have any permanent advantage over them. If there were among us a haughty hereditary aristocracy, who wished to keep their families distinct, and prevent native genius of humble origin from mingling with, or rising superior to them, their first blow must be aimed at the free schools of our country. But we ought to cite the few remarks which Mr. Carter has made upon this interesting topic. "If our ancestors were stern republicans, this institution did more than any and all others, to make them so, and to keep them So. While the best schools in the land are free, all the classes of society are blended. The rich and the poor meet and are educated together. And if educated together, nature is so even-handed in the distribution of her favors, that no fear need be entertained, that a monopoly of talent, of industry, and consequently of acquirements, will follow a monopoly of property. The principle, upon which our free schools are established, is, in itself, a stern leveller of factitious distinctions. Every generation, while the system is executed according to the true spirit of it, as conceived by our ancestors, will bring its quota of new men to fill the public places of distinction,-men who owe nothing to the fortunes or the crimes of their fathers, but all, under the blessing of God, to their own industry and the common schools. I say the principle in itself, because it has never been carried into full operation, and probably never will be. "Its tendency, however, is not to level by debasing the exalted; but by exalting the debased. And it is a more effectual check against an aristocracy of wealth, and consequently of political influence, than would be a national jubilee and the equal distribution of property once in fifty years, without such a principle at the foundation of our system of public instruction. Knowledge is power,' says Lord Bacon; and so is property power, because it will procure knowledge. If we suppose society divided into two classes, the rich and the poor, the property of the former class, if there were no such institution as the free schools, would procure such immense advantages of education, as to bring second, third, and any rate talents, into successful competition with those of the first order, without such advantages. "This use of property puts upon it its highest value. And it would not be politic, if it were possible, to destroy it. But it should seem, that this use ought to be limited; and that some of our institutions, at least, ought to have the tendency to put all upon the footing, on which nature and the God of nature left them. And just in proportion as you lose sight of, or abandon the true principle of the free schools, you lose sight of, and abandon all the moral, political, and religious blessings which result from them. You check the diffusion of knowledge through all classes of people. You stop the circulation through the extremities of the body politic of the very life-blood, which must nourish and sustain them. You may preserve and amuse yourselves with the name of free institutions, and of a republican government, but you will not be blessed with the reality. You may incorporate in your constitution, if you like, the articles, 'that all men are born free and equal,' and 'that all are eligible to the highest offices;' but this is not freedom, while ninety-nine hundredths of the community have not the means of fitting themselves or their children, for discharging the duties of those high offices. As well might you tie the legs, and pinion the arms of a man, and tell him he has as fair a chance to win the race, as one who is free and trained to the course. Something like this our ancestors must have felt, who established the free schools; and something like this their posterity must feel, if they would cherish and preserve them." pp. 20-21. Confining our remarks to the State, whose schools are the subject of Mr. Carter's examination, we observe, that the house of representatives supposes itself, whether truly or not, peculiarly to represent the people. It holds the public purse, and has the ordering and the appropriation of assessments all over the State. Is it not strange, then, that it should enable so small a portion of them to go to the support of those schools on which so much of its character depends? This is a tax, too, mainly upon the rich, and almost entirely for the assistance of the poor, for the rich send their children elsewhere. It is a tax, however, which they ought, and which they are generally willing to pay, because, like every other judicious tax, it strengthens good government, and thus secures to them the enjoyment of their property, which otherwise might be in danger of violation or encroachment. How is it, then, that almost all the late measures of the legislature have tended to lighten this useful and indeed indispensable tax? While the demand for knowledge, like the demand for every thing else, increases rapidly as society advances in opulence and improvement, the proportional number of teachers for the common schools has been made less, and their requisite qualifications strangely diminished. They were far greater and more, under the colony laws, than they are now. The knowledge of Latin and Greek, which were then requisites, and are now dispensed with, are not, it is true, of much consequence alone; but the possessor of these will be likely to have other more valuable attainments, and a mind, in some measure, properly disciplined for the purpose of instruction. At the present time, nothing is necessary for the common-school teacher, but some slight recommendations, which almost any one of common sense may obtain, and, of those who do obtain them, the cheapest, and therefore the most incompetent and the worst, is surest of success. How much has this sunk, and is still sinking the character of our free popular education? It has had the doubly bad effect of leading the weak, the ignorant, and the presumptuous to offer themselves as candidates for this truly responsible and important station; and of withdrawing those who are really able and meritorious instructers from situations, where their services must be so miserably paid. The monies appropriated to it are every year less and less, the qualifications of the teachers thus continually diminishing; and yet the committees, whom the towns appoint, although disposed to employ better ones, are under the sad necessity of accepting such as offer themselves, however meanly they may think of their scholarship or their manners, simply because for the poor compensation, which they are allowed to make, they can get no others. Where will the legislature order this to stop? It is All the consequences which might have been fairly anticipated from this state of things, are now beginning to be fully seen and felt. The country schools are every where degraded. They stand low even in the estimation of their warmest friends. thought a mean thing for a man of competent estate, or for any but the mechanic, the artisan, or the laborer, to send their children to them for their education. The pupils participate in this degradation. It must and will affect their characters; for these are colored by the characters of those around them. Thus, independently of the poor instruction which they now get, they suffer a disadvantage, because their best associates, those who might do much to elevate their views and refine their manners, are taken away from them, as if they were an inferior order of beings. Thus it is, that feelings and sentiments, not in perfect harmony with our peculiar political principles, may be early taught and deeply settled. Strong lines of demarkation are drawn between classes of naturally equal rank and merit. The pure republican nature of the free schools is, in short, wholly destroyed. Nor does the evil rest here. The rich, the enlightened, the influential, all indeed, who are of any weight and power in our country, have withdrawn the interest they had in them, and transferred it elsewhere. The seminaries, which require private pay, and which, therefore, exclude necessarily nineteen twentieths of the community, absorb all this interest. Innumerable academies have thus sprung up 1 |