Part 9

There are many who never attained their true stature here, yet without blameworthiness of theirs; men cheated of their growth. Many a Milton walks on his silent way, and goes down at last, not singing and unsung. How many a possible Newton or Descartes has dug the sewers of a city, and dies, giving no sign of the wealthy soul he bore!

"Chill penury repressed his noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul."

What if the best of you had been born slaves in North Carolina, or among savages at New Zealand; nay, in some of the filthy cellars of Boston, and turned friendless into the streets; what might you have become? Surely not what you are; yet, before God, you might, perhaps, be more deserving, and, at death, go to a far higher place. What is so terribly wrong here, must be righted there. It cannot be that God will thrust a man out of Heaven, because his mother was a savage, a slave, a pauper, or a criminal. It is men's impiety which does so here, not Heaven's justice there! How the wrong shall be righted I know not, care not now to know; of the fact I ask no further certainty. Many that are last shall be first. It may be that the pirate, in heaven, having outgrown his earthly sins, shall teach justice to the judge who hanged him here. They who were oppressed and trampled on, kept down, dwarfed, stinted and emaciate in soul, must have justice done them there, and will doubtless stand higher in Heaven than we, who, having many talents, used them poorly, or hid them idle in the dirt, knowing our Father's will, yet heeding not. It was Jesus that said, Many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down in the kingdom of God, and men, calling themselves saints, be thrust out.

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Shall we remember the deeds of the former life; this man that he picked rags out of the mud in the streets, and another that he ruled nations? Who can tell; nay, who need care to ask? Such a remembrance seems not needed for retribution's sake. The oak remembers not each leaf it ever bore, though each helped to form the oak, its branch and bole. How much has gone from our bodies! we know not how it came or went! How much of our past life is gone from our memory, yet its result lives in our character! The saddler remembers not every stitch he took while an apprentice, yet each stitch helped form the saddle.

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Shall we know our friends again? For my own part I cannot doubt it; least of all when I drop a tear over their recent dust. Death does not separate them from us here. Can life in heaven do it? They live in our remembrance; memory rakes in the ashes of the dead, and the virtues of the departed flame up anew, enlightening the dim cold walls of our consciousness. Much of our joy is social here; we only half enjoy an undivided good. God made mankind, but sundered that into men, that they might help one another. Must it not be so there, and we be with our real friends? Man loves to think it; yet to trust is wiser than to prophesy. But the girl who went from us a little one may be as parent to her father when he comes, and the man who left us have far outgrown our dream of an angel when we meet again. I cannot doubt that many a man who not long ago left his body here, now far surpasses the radiant manliness which Jesus won and wore; yes, is far better, greater, too, than many poorly conceive of God.

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There are times when we think little of a future life. In a period of success, serene and healthy life; the day's good is good enough for that day. But there comes a time when this day's good is not enough; its ill too great to bear. When death comes down and wrenches off a friend from our side; wife, child, brother, father, a dear one taken; this life is not enough. Oh, no, not to the coldest, coarsest, and most sensual man. I put it to you, to the most heartless of you all, or the most cold and doubting--When you lay down in the earth your mother, sister, wife, or child, remembering that you shall see their face no more, is life enough? Do you not reach out your arms for heaven, for immortality, and feel you cannot die? When I see men at a feast, or busy in the street, I do not think of their eternal life; perhaps feel not my own. But when the stiffened body goes down to the tomb, sad, silent, remorseless, I feel there is no death for the man. That clod which yonder dust shall cover is not my brother. The dust goes to its place, the man to his own. It is then I feel my immortality. I look through the grave into heaven. I ask no miracle, no proof, no reasoning for me. I ask no risen dust to teach me immortality. I am conscious of eternal life.

But there are worse hours than these: seasons bitterer than death, sorrows that lie a latent poison in the heart, slowly sapping the foundations of our peace. There are hours when the best life seems a sheer failure to the man who lived it, his wisdom folly, his genius impotence, his best deed poor and small; when he wonders why he was suffered to be born; when all the sorrows of the world seem poured upon him; when he stands in a populous loneliness, and though weak, can only lean in upon himself. In such hour he feels the insufficiency of this life. It is only his cradle-time, he counts himself just born; all honors, wealth and fame are but baubles in his baby hand; his deep philosophy but nursery rhymes. Yet he feels the immortal fire burning in his heart. He stretches his hands out from the swaddling-clothes of flesh, reaching after the topmost star, which he sees, or dreams he sees, and longs to go alone. Still worse, the consciousness of sin comes over him; he feels that he has insulted himself. All about him seems little; himself little, yet clamoring to be great. Then we feel our immortality; through the gairish light of day we see a star or two beyond. The soul within us feels her wings, contending to be born, impatient for the sky, and wrestles with the earthly worm that folds us in.

"Mysterious Night! when our first Parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came; And lo, Creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?"

I would not slight this wondrous world. I love its day and night. Its flowers and its fruits are dear to me. I would not wilfully lose sight of a departing cloud. Every year opens new beauty in a star; or in a purple gentian fringed with loveliness. The laws too of matter seem more wonderful the more I study them, in the whirling eddies of the dust, in the curious shells of former life buried by thousands in a grain of chalk, or in the shining diagrams of light above my head. Even the ugly becomes beautiful when truly seen. I see the jewel in the bunchy toad. The more I live, the more I love this lovely world; feel more its Author in each little thing; in all that is great. But yet I feel my immortality the more. In childhood the consciousness of immortal life buds forth feeble, though full of promise. In the man it unfolds its fragrant petals, his most celestial flower, to mature its seed throughout eternity. The prospect of that everlasting life, the perfect justice yet to come, the infinite progress before us, cheer and comfort the heart. Sad and disappointed, full of self-reproach, we shall not be so forever. The light of heaven breaks upon the night of trial, sorrow, sin; the sombre clouds which overhung the east, grown purple now, tell us the dawn of heaven is coming in. Our faces, gleamed on by that, smile in the new-born glow; we are beguiled of our sadness before we are aware. The certainty of this provokes us to patience, it forbids us to be slothfully sorrowful. It calls us to be up and doing. The thought that all will at last be right with the slave, the poor, the weak, and the wicked, inspires us with zeal to work for them here, and make it all right for them even now.

There is small merit in being willing to die; it seems almost sinful in a good man to wish it when the world needs him here so much. It is weak and unmanly to be always looking and sighing voluptuously for that. But it is of great comfort to have in your soul a sure trust in immortality; of great value here and now to anticipate time and live to-day the eternal life. That we may all do. The joys of heaven will begin as soon as we attain the character of heaven and do its duties. That may begin to-day. It is everlasting life to know God, to have His Spirit dwelling in you, yourself at one with Him. Try that and prove its worth. Justice, usefulness, wisdom, religion, love, are the best things we hope for in Heaven. Try them on--they will fit you here not less becomingly. They are the best things of earth. Think no outlay of goodness and piety too great. You will find your reward begin here. As much goodness and piety, so much Heaven. Men will not pay you--God will; pay you now; pay you hereafter and for ever.

IV.

THE PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.--AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE ONONDAGA TEACHERS' INSTITUTE, AT SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, OCTOBER 4, 1849.

Education is the developing and furnishing of the faculties of man. To educate the people is one of the functions of the State. It is generally allowed in the free States of America, that the community owes each child born into it a chance for education, intellectual, moral, and religious. Hence the child has a just and recognized claim on the community for the means of this education, which is to be afforded him, not as a charity, but as a right.

The fact indicates the progress mankind has made in not many years. Once the state only took charge of the military education of the people; not at all of their intellectual, moral, or religious culture. They received their military discipline, not for the special and personal advantage of the individuals, Thomas and Oliver, but for the benefit of the state. They received it, not because they were men claiming it in virtue of their manhood, but as subjects of the state, because their military training was needful for the state, or for its rulers who took the name thereof. Then the only culture which the community took public pains to bestow on its members, was training them to destroy. The few, destined to command, learned the science of destruction, and the kindred science of defence; the many, doomed to obey, learned only the art to destroy, and the kindred art of defence.

The ablest men of the nation were sought out for military teachers, giving practical lessons of the science and the art; they were covered with honor and loaded with gold. The wealth of the people and their highest science went to this work. Institutions were founded to promote this education, and carefully watched over by the state, for it was thought the Commonwealth depended on disciplined valor. The soldier was thought to be the type of the state, the archetype of man; accordingly the highest spiritual function of the state was the production of soldiers.

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Most of the civilized nations have passed through that stage of their development: though the few or the many are still taught the science or the art of war in all countries called Christian, there is yet a class of men for whom the state furnishes the means of education that is not military; means of education which the individuals of that class could not provide for themselves. This provision is made at the cost of the state; that is, at the cost of every man in the state, for what the public pays, you pay and I pay, rich or poor, willingly and consciously, or otherwise. This class of men is different in different countries, and their education is modified to suit the form of government and the idea of the state. In Rome the state provides for the public education of priests. Rome is an ecclesiastical state; her government is a Theocracy--a government of all the people, but by the priests, for the sake of the priests, and in the name of God. Place in the church is power, bringing honor and wealth; no place out of the church is of much value. The offices are filled by priests, the chief magistrate is a priest, supposed to derive his power and right to rule, not democratically, from the people, or royally, by inheritance,--for in theory the priest is as if he had no father, as theoretically he has no child,--but theocratically from God.

In Rome the priesthood is thought to be the flower of the state. The most important spiritual function of the state, therefore, is the production of priests; accordingly the greatest pains are taken with their education. Institutions are founded at the public cost, to make priests out of men; these institutions are the favorites of government, well ordered, well watched over, well attended, and richly honored. Institutions for the education of the people are of small account, ill endowed, watched over but poorly, thinly attended, and not honored at all. The people are designed to be subjects of the church, and as little culture is needed for that, though much to make them citizens thereof, so little is given.

As there are institutions for the education of the priests, so there is a class of men devoted to that work; able men, well disciplined, sometimes men born with genius, and always men furnished with the accomplishments of sacerdotal and scientific art; very able men, very well disciplined, the most learned and accomplished men in the land. These men are well paid and abundantly honored, for on their faithfulness the power of the priesthood, and so the welfare of the state, is thought to depend. Without the allurement of wealth and honors, these able men would not come to this work; and without the help of their ability, the priests could not be well educated. Hence their power would decline; the class, tonsured and consecrated but not instructed, would fall into contempt; the theocracy would end. So the educators of the priests are held in honor, surrounded by baits for vulgar eyes; but the public educators of the people, chiefly women or ignorant men, are held in small esteem. The very buildings destined to the education of the priests are conspicuous and stately; the colleges of the Jesuits, the Propaganda, the seminaries for the education of priests, the monasteries for training the more wealthy and _regular_ clergy, are great establishments, provided with libraries, and furnished with all the apparatus needful for their important work. But the school-houses for the people are small and mean buildings, ill made, ill furnished, and designed for a work thought to be of little moment. All this is in strict harmony with the idea of the theocracy, where the priesthood is mighty and the people are subjects of the Church; where the effort of the state is toward producing a priest.

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In England the state takes charge of the education of another class, the nobility and gentry; that is, of young men of ancient and historical families, the nobility, and young men of fortune, the gentry. England is an oligarchical state; her government an aristocracy, the government of all by a few, the nobility and gentry, for the sake of a few, and in the name of a king. There the foundation of power is wealth and birth from a noble family. The union of both takes place in a wealthy noble. There, nobility is the blossom of the state; aristocratic birth brings wealth, office, and their consequent social distinction. Political offices are chiefly monopolized by men of famous birth or great riches. The king, the chief officer of the land, must surpass all others in wealth, and the pomp and circumstance which comes thereof, and in aristocracy of birth. He is not merely noble but royal; his right to rule is not at all derived from the people, but from his birth. Thus he has the two essentials of aristocratic influence, birth and wealth, not merely in the heroic degree, but in the supreme degree.

As the state is an aristocracy, its most important spiritual function is the production of aristocrats; each noble family transmits the full power of its blood only to a single person--the oldest son; of the highest form, the royal, only one is supposed to be born in a generation, only one who receives and transmits in full the blood royal.

As the nobility are the blossom of the state, great pains must be taken with the education of those persons born of patrician or wealthy families. As England is not merely a military or ecclesiastical state, though partaking largely of both, but commercial, agricultural and productive in many ways; as she holds a very prominent place in the politics of the world, so there must be a good general education provided for these persons; otherwise their power would decline, the nobility and gentry sink into contempt, and the government pass into other hands,--for though a man may be born to rank and wealth, he is not born to knowledge, nor to practical skill. Hence institutions are founded for the education of the aristocratic class: Oxford and Cambridge, "those twins of learning," with their preparatories and help-meets.

The design of these institutions is to educate the young men of family and fortune. The aim in their academic culture is not as in Pagan Rome, a military state, to make soldiers, nor as in Christian Rome, to turn out priests; it is not, as in the German universities, to furnish the world with scholars and philosophers, men of letters and science, but to mature and furnish the gentleman, in the technical sense of that word, a person conventionally fitted to do the work of a complicated aristocratic state, to fill with honor its various offices, military, political, ecclesiastical or social, and enjoy the dignity which comes thereof. These universities furnish the individual who resorts thither with opportunities not otherwise to be had; they are purchased at the cost of the state, at the cost of each man in the state. The alumnus at Oxford pays his term-bills, indeed, but the amount thereof is a trifle compared to the actual cost of his residence there; mankind pays the residue.

These institutions are continually watched over by the state, which is the official guardian of aristocratic education; they are occasionally assisted by grants from the public treasury, though they are chiefly endowed by the voluntary gifts of individual men. But these private gifts, like the public grants, come from the earnings of the whole nation. They are well endowed, superintended well, and richly honored; their chancellors and vice-chancellors are men of distinguished social rank; they have their representatives in Parliament; able men are sought out for teachers, professors, heads of houses; men of good ability, of masterly education, and the accomplishments of a finished gentleman; they are well paid, and copiously rewarded with honors and social distinction. Gentility favors these institutions; nobility watches over them, and royalty smiles upon them. In this threefold sunlight, no wonder that they thrive. The buildings at their service are among the most costly and elegant in the land; large museums are attached to them, and immense libraries; every printer in England, at his own cost, must give a copy of each book he publishes to Cambridge and Oxford. What wealth can buy, or artistic genius can create, is there devoted to the culture of this powerful class.

But while the nobility and gentry are reckoned the flower of the state, the common people are only the leaves, and therefore thought of small importance in the political botany of the nation. Their education is amazingly neglected; is mainly left to the accidental piety of private Christians, to the transient charity of philanthropic men, or the "enlightened self-interest" of mechanics and small-traders, who now and then found institutions for the education of some small fraction of the multitude. But such institutions are little favored by the government, or the spirit of the dominant class; gentility does not frequent them, nor nobility help them, nor royalty watch over to foster and to bless. The Parliament, which voted one hundred thousand pounds of the nation's money for the queen's horses and hounds, had but thirty thousand to spare for the education of her people. No honor attends the educators of the people; no wealth is heaped up for them; no beautiful buildings are erected for their use; no great libraries got ready at the public charge; no costly buildings are provided. You wonder at the colleges and collegiate churches of Oxford and of Cambridge; at the magnificence of public edifices in London, new or ancient--the House of Parliament, the Bank, the palaces of royal and noble men, the splendor of the churches--but you ask, where are the school-houses for the people? You go to Bridewell and Newgate for the answer. All this is consistent with the idea of an aristocracy. The gentleman is the type of the state; and the effort of the state is towards producing him. The people require only education enough to become the servants of the gentleman, and seem not to be valued for their own sake, but only as they furnish pabulum for the flower of the oligarchy.

In Rome and England, great sums have been given by wealthy men, and by the state itself, to furnish the means of a theocratic or aristocratic education to a certain class; and to produce the national priests, and the national gentlemen. There public education is the privilege of a few, but bought at the cost of the many; for the plough-boy in Yorkshire, who has not culture enough to read the petition for daily bread in the Lord's Prayer, helps pay the salary of the Master of Trinity, and the swine-herd in the Roman Campagna, who knows nothing of religion, except what he learns at Christmas and Easter, by seeing the Pope carried on men's shoulders into St. Peter's, helps support the Propaganda and the Roman College. The privileged classes are to receive an education under the eye of the state, which considers itself bound to furnish them the means of a public education, partly at the individual's cost, chiefly at the cost of the public. The amount of education depends on three things:--on the educational attainments of the human race; on the wealth and tranquillity of the special nation, enabling it to avail itself of that general attainment; and on the natural powers and industry of the particular individual in the nation. Such is the solidarity of mankind that the development of the individual thus depends on that of the race, and the education of a priest in Rome or a gentleman in England is the resultant of these three forces,--the attainment of mankind, the power of the nation, and the private character and conduct of the man himself. Each of these three is a variable and not a constant quantity. So the amount of education which a man can receive at Oxford or at Rome fluctuates and depends on the state of the nation and of the world; but as the attainments of mankind have much increased within a few years, as the wealth of England has increased, and her tranquillity become more secure, you see how easy it becomes for the state to offer each gentleman an amount of education which it would have been quite impossible to furnish in the time of the Yorks and the Lancasters.

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