Part 5

_Politian_. Remember? I do. Lead on! I _do_ remember. (_going_.) Let us descend. Baldazzar! Oh I would give, Freely would give the broad lands of my earldom To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice, To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear Once 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 voice Chimed 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, make Apology unto the Duke for me, I go not down to-night.

_Baldazzar_. Your lordship's pleasure Shall be attended to. Good night, Politian.

_Politian_. Good night, my friend, good night.

III.

The Gardens of a Palace--Moonlight. Lalage and Politian.

_Lalage_. And dost thou speak of love To _me_, Politian?--dost thou speak of love To Lalage?--ah wo--ah wo is me! This mockery is most cruel--most cruel indeed! {16}

_Politian_. Weep not! oh, weep not thus--thy bitter tears Will madden me. Oh weep not, Lalage-- Be comforted. I know--I know it all, And _still_ I speak of love. Look at me, brightest, And beautiful Lalage, and listen to _me_! 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 now Within 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 maidens Pure 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 tally With 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 abhor The 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 glory And trample it under foot. What matters it-- What matters it, my fairest, and my best, That we go down unhonored and forgotten Into the dust--so we descend together. Descend together--and then--and then perchance----

_Lalage_. Why dost thou pause, Politian?

_Politian_. And then perchance Arise together, Lalage, and roam The 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! Thou _lovest_ me, and in my heart of hearts I feel thou lovest me truly.

_Politian_. Oh, Lalage! (_throwing himself upon his knee_.) And lovest thou _me_?

_Lalage_. Hist!--hush! within the gloom Of 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 bough Stirred 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 wind Is chilly--and these melancholy boughs Throw over all things a gloom.

_Lalage_. Politian! Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the land With 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 winds Of Heaven untrammelled flow--which air to breathe Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter In days that are to come?

_Politian_. O, wilt thou--wilt thou Fly to that Paradise--my Lalage, wilt thou Fly 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 live For thee, and in thine eyes--and thou shalt be No more a mourner--but the radiant Joys Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope Attend 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! Thou _art_ not gone--thou art not _gone_, Politian! I _feel_ thou art not gone--yet dare not look, Lest I behold thee not; thou _couldst_ not go With 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 hate My womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou _art_ not gone-- O speak to me! I _knew_ thou wouldst not go! I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go. Villain, thou _art_ not 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_.)

LOGIC.

Among ridiculous conceits may be selected _par 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, that _no_ one Hebrew word signifies life and death.

{17}

AN ADDRESS ON EDUCATION,

AS CONNECTED WITH THE PERMANENCE OF OUR REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS.

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_.]

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 for _not 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 will _never_ despair 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 such _simple 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 irreversible _sic volo_ of 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 only _systems_ of measures, but their minutest details, year after year, before successive councils, in successive generations: and supposing the _machinery_ of _Legislative_, _Executive_, and _Judiciary_ to 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 be _their_ power 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 the POPULAR WILL, which supremely controls this labyrinthine complication of difficulties, should be enlightened by knowledge, tempered by kindness, and ruled by justice?

[Footnote 1: Mr. Randolph's Speech in the Virginia Convention, November, 1829.]

{18} 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 "_never_ to despair of the republic."

But is it ever to be thus? Were then the visions of liberty for centuries on centuries, which our fathers so fondly cherished, all deceitful? Were the toil, and treasure, and blood they lavished as that liberty's price, all lavished in vain? Is there no deliverance for man, from the doom of subjection which kings and their minions pronounce against him? No remedy for the diseases which, in freedom's apparently most healthful state, menace her with death?

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 true _whig_; not in the party acceptation of the day, but in the sense, employed by Jefferson, of one who _trusts and cherishes the people_.[2] Throughout his life, we find that great statesman insisting upon _popular instruction_ as 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?

[Footnote 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 droite_ and _côté 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]

[Footnote 3: Montesquieu, mentioning the adoption, by the Romans, of an improved _buckler_ from 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.]

The _Common-school_ system of New York, which has been in operation since the year 1816, is in substance this: The counties having been already laid off into tracts of five or six miles square, called _townships_,--each of these, upon raising one half the sum needed there for teachers' wages, is entitled to have the other half furnished from the state treasury: and each _neighborhood_ in the township, before it can receive any part of this joint sum, must organize itself as a _school district_, build and furnish a school house, and cause a school to be taught there for at least three months, by a teacher who has been examined and found duly qualified, by a standing committee, appointed for that purpose. To the schools thus established, all children, rich and poor 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 were _regular pupils at the common-schools_: leaving fewer than 14,000 for private or other instruction, and reducing the number who are unschooled, to an inappreciable point. In Massachusetts, the townships are compelled by law to defray nearly the whole expense of their schools; and the organization is in other respects less perfect than in New York. In each, however, about ONE-FOURTH _of the whole population_ is receiving instruction for a considerable part of the year; and in Massachusetts, in 1832, there were _but_ TEN _persons between the ages of 14 and 21, who could not read and write_.

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, that _the 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 a _gratuity_, or _what seems_ to 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 to _get the worth of their money_, are meditating the adoption of a plan like that of New York.

Even in Europe, we may find admirable, nay wonderful examples, for our imitation.

{19} PRUSSIA has 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 expressly _for 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.[4] France, 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, _normal_ schools) pervade all these countries.

[Footnote 4: The enumeration in Prussia, is of children between 7 and 14 years of age; in New York, of those between 5 and 16. In Prussia, the sending of all children to school is ensured by legal penalties upon parents, guardians, and masters, who fail to send. New York approximates remarkably to the same result, by simply enlisting the _interest_ of her people in their schools.]

In England, government has yet done little towards educating the common people: but Scotland has long[5] enjoyed _parish schools_ equalled only by those of Prussia, Germany, and some of our own states, in creating a virtuous and intelligent yeomanry. Throughout Great Britain, voluntary associations for the diffusion of useful knowledge, in which are enrolled some of the most illustrious minds not only of the British empire but of this age, have been for years in active and salutary operation; and, by publishing cheap and simple tracts upon useful and entertaining subjects, and by sending over the country competent persons to deliver plain and popular lectures, illustrated by suitable apparatus, they have, as the North American Review expresses it, "poured floods of intellectual light upon the lower ranks of society."

[Footnote 5: Ever 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.