Popular Education Part 17

Under a free government, the intelligence of the people, coupled with their virtue, will be found to be a sure index to a nation's prosperity, and to the individual and social well-being of all who enjoy its protection. G.o.d is a being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and no part of his government can be successfully administered except upon the principles of knowledge and virtue. The success that attends a nation of freemen will depend upon the extent to which these are cultivated, and the universality of their dissemination in the body politic. While the cultivation of these will increase the safety of the government, their neglect will hasten its downfall.

Judge Story, in a lecture upon the importance of the science of government as a branch of popular education, has well remarked, that "it is not to rulers and statesman alone that the science of government is important and useful. It is equally indispensable for every American citizen, to enable him to exercise his own rights, to protect his own interests, and to secure the public liberties and the just operations of public authority. A republic, by the very const.i.tution of its government, requires, on the part of the people, more vigilance and constant exertion than any other form of government. The American Republic, above all others, demands from every citizen unceasing vigilance and exertion, since we have deliberately dispensed with every guard against danger or ruin except the intelligence and virtue of the people themselves. It is founded on the basis that the people have wisdom enough to frame their own system of government, and public spirit enough to preserve it; that they can not be cheated out of their liberties, and they will not submit to have them taken from them by force. We have silently a.s.sumed the fundamental truth that, as it never can be the interest of the majority of the people to prostrate their own political equality and happiness, so they never can be seduced by flattery or corruption, by the intrigues of faction or the arts of ambition, to adopt any measures which shall subvert them. _If this confidence in ourselves is justified_--and who among Americans does not feel a pride in endeavoring to maintain it?--_let us never forget that it can be justified only by a watchfulness and zeal in proportion to our confidence_. Let us never forget that we must prove ourselves wiser, better, and purer than any other nation ever has yet been, if we are to count upon success. Every other republic has fallen by the discords and treachery of its own citizens. It has been said by one of our own departed statesmen, himself a devout admirer of popular government, that power is perpetually stealing from the many to the few."

The inst.i.tutions of a republic are endangered by the ignorance of the ma.s.ses on the one hand, and by intelligent, but unprincipled and vicious aspirants to office and places of emolument on the other. Where these two cla.s.ses coexist to any considerable extent, the safety of the republic is jeoparded; for they have a strong sympathy with each other, and it is the constant policy of the latter to increase the number of the former. They arouse their pa.s.sions and stimulate their appet.i.tes, and then lead them in a way they know not. A barrel of whisky, or even of hard cider, with a "hurrah!" will control ten to one more of this cla.s.s of voters than will the soundest arguments of enlightened and honorable statesmen. And yet one of these votes thus procured, when deposited in the ballot-box, counts the same as the vote of a Was.h.i.+ngton or a Franklin!

There is one remedy, and but one, for this alarming state of things, which prevails to a less or greater extent in almost every community.

That remedy is simple. It consists in the establishment of schools for the education of the whole people. These schools, however, should be of a more perfect character than the majority of those which have hitherto existed. In them the principles of morality should be copiously intermingled with the principles of science. Cases of conscience should alternate with lessons in the rudiments. The rule requiring us to do to others as we would that they should do unto us, should be made as familiar as the multiplication table, and our youth should become as familiar with the practical application of the one as of the other. The lives of great and good men should be held up for admiration and example, and especially the life and character of Jesus Christ, as the sublimest pattern of benevolence, of purity, and of self-sacrifice ever exhibited to mortals. In every course of studies, all the practical and preceptive parts of the Gospel should be sacredly inculcated, and all dogmatical theology and sectarianism sacredly excluded. In no school should the Bible be opened to reveal the sword of the polemic, but to unloose the dove of peace.

In connection with the preceding, and in addition to the branches now commonly taught in our schools, the study of _politics_, which has been beautifully defined as _the art of making a people happy_, should be generally introduced. "I am not aware," says an eminent jurist,[57]

"that there are any solid objections which can be urged against introducing the science of government into our common schools as a branch of popular education. If it should be said that it will have a tendency to introduce party creeds and party dogmas into our schools, the true answer is, that the principles of government should be there taught, and not the creeds or dogmas of any party. The principles of the Const.i.tution under which we live; the principles upon which republics generally are founded, by which they are sustained, and through which they must be saved; the principles of public policy, by which national prosperity is secured, and national ruin averted--these certainly are not party creeds or party dogmas, but are fit to be taught at all times and on all occasions, if any thing which belongs to human life and our own condition is fit to be taught. If we wait until we can guard ourselves against every possible chance of abuse before we introduce any system of instruction, we shall wait until the current of time has flowed into the ocean of eternity. There is nothing which ever has been or ever can be taught without some chance of abuse; nay, without some absolute abuse. Even religion itself, our truest and our only lasting hope and consolation, has not escaped the common infirmity of our nature. If it never had been taught until it could be taught with the purity, simplicity, and energy of the apostolic age, we ourselves, instead of being blessed with the bright and balmy influences of Christianity, should now have been groping our way in the darkness of heathenism, or left to perish in the cold and cheerless labyrinths of skepticism."

[57] Joseph Story, before the American Inst.i.tute of Instruction.

Lord Brougham, one of the most powerful advocates of popular education in our day, has made the following remarks, which can not be more fitly addressed to any people than to the citizens of the American States. "A sound system of government," says this transatlantic writer, "requires the people to read and inform themselves upon political subjects; else they are the prey of every quack, every impostor, and every agitator who may practice his trade in the country. If they do not read; if they do not learn; if they do not digest by discussion and reflection what they have read and learned; if they do not qualify themselves to form opinions for themselves, other men will form opinions for them, not according to the truth and the interests of the people, but according to their own individual and selfish interest, which may, and most probably will, be contrary to that of the people at large."

Two very important inquiries here naturally suggest themselves to us: they are, first, whether there is at present in this country a degree of intelligence sufficient for the wise administration of its affairs; and secondly, whether existing provisions for the education of our country's youth are adequate to the wants of a great and free people, who are endeavoring to demonstrate to the world that great problem of nations--the capability of man for self-government. We judge of the literary attainments of the citizens of a state or of a nation, _as a whole_, by comparing all the individual members thereof with a given standard, and of their arrangements for educating the rising generation by the character of their schools, and the proportion of the population that receive instruction in them. Let us test the existing standard of education in various states of this Union in both of these respects.

DEGREE OF POPULAR INTELLIGENCE.--According to the census of 1840,[58]

the total population of the United States was, in round numbers, seventeen millions. Of this number, five hundred and fifty thousand were whites over twenty years of age, who could not read and write. The proportion varies in different states, from one in five hundred and eighty-nine in Connecticut, to one in eleven in North Carolina.

[58] The census for 1850 is now being taken. Whether its results will tell more favorably upon the general interests of education in the United States than those of the last census, remains to be seen. Some of the states during the last ten years have done n.o.bly; others have evidently retrograded. We have also a tide of foreign immigration pouring in upon us. .h.i.therto unprecedented, averaging a thousand a day for the past year, all of whom need to be Americanized.

If we exclude, in the estimate, all colored persons, and whites under twenty years of age, the proportion will stand thus: in the United States, one to every twelve is unable to read and write. The proportion varies in the different states, from one in two hundred and ninety-four in Connecticut, which stands the highest, to one in three in North Carolina, which stands the lowest. In Tennessee the proportion is one in four. In Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas, each, one in five. In Delaware and Alabama, each, one in six. In Indiana, one in seven. In Illinois and Wisconsin, each, one in eight.

On the brighter end of the scale, next to Connecticut, in which the proportion is one in two hundred and ninety-four, is New Hamps.h.i.+re, in which the proportion is one in one hundred and fifty-nine. In Ma.s.sachusetts it is one in ninety. In Maine, one in seventy-two. In Vermont, one in sixty-three. Next in order comes Michigan, in which the proportion is one in thirty-nine.[59]

[59] According to the last census, there were twenty states below Michigan, and only five above her. But even this estimate, favorable as it is in the scale of states, does not allow Michigan an opportunity to appear in her true light, for it is well known that a great proportion of the illiterate population of this state is confined to a few counties. In Mackinaw and Chippewa counties there is one white person over twenty years of age to every five of the entire population that is unable to read and write. In Ottawa, one in fourteen; in Ca.s.s, one in twenty-two; in Wayne and Saginaw, each, one in thirty-six. On the other hand, there were eight organized counties in the state in which, according to the census referred to, there was not a single white inhabitant over twenty years of age that was unable to read and write.

It is an interesting fact, at least to persons residing in the Northwest, that in Ohio also (on the Western Reserve) there were seven such counties, making fifteen in these two states, while in all New England there were but two--Franklin in Ma.s.sachusetts, and Ess.e.x in Vermont.

But these statements in relation to the number of persons in the United States who are unable to read and write, although they give the fearful aggregate of _five hundred and fifty thousand_ over twenty years of age who are dest.i.tute of these qualifications, it is believed, fail to discover much of gross ignorance that is cherished in various portions of the country; for there is no state in the Union, nor any section of a single state, where men do not wish to be accounted able to read and write. The deputy marshals who took the census received their compensation by the head, and not by the day, for the work done. They therefore traveled from house to house, making the shortest practicable stay at each. More was required of them than could be thoroughly and accurately performed in the time allowed. Their informants were subjected to no test. In the absence of the heads of families, whose information would have been more reliable, the bare word of persons over sixteen years of age was accredited. It is, moreover, well known, that no inconsiderable number of persons gave false information when inquired of by the deputies. From these and other reasons, it is believed that numerous and important errors exist in the census; and this opinion is corroborated by a ma.s.s of unquestionable testimony, of which I will introduce a specimen.

The annual message of Governor Campbell, of Virginia, to the Legislature of that state, the year immediately preceding that in which the census was taken, clearly shows that the capacity to read and write in persons over twenty years of age was greatly over-estimated in that state.

Governor Campbell, after stating that the importance of an efficient system of education, embracing in its comprehensive and benevolent design the whole people, can not be too frequently recurred to, goes on to remark as follows:

"The statements furnished by the clerks of five city and borough courts, and ninety-three of the county courts, in reply to the inquiries addressed to them, ascertain that, of all those who applied for marriage licenses, a large number were unable to write their names. The years selected for this inquiry were those of =1817=, =1827=, and =1837=. The statements show that the applicants for marriage licenses for =1817= amounted to =4682=, of whom =1127= were unable to write; =5048= in =1827=, of whom the number unable to write was =1166=; and in =1837= the applicants were =4614=, and of these the number of =1047= were unable to write their names. From which it appears there still exists a deplorable extent of ignorance, and that, in truth, it is hardly less than it was twenty years ago, when the school fund was created. The statements, it will be remembered, are partial, not embracing quite all the counties, and are, moreover, confined to one s.e.x. The education of females, it is to be feared, is in a condition of much greater neglect.

"There are now in the state two hundred thousand children between the ages of five and fifteen. Forty thousand of them are reported to be poor children, and of them only one half to be attending schools. It may be safely a.s.sumed that, of those possessing property adequate to the expenses of a plain education, a large number are growing up in ignorance, for want of schools within convenient distances. Of those at school, many derive little or no instruction, owing to the incapacity of the teachers, as well as to their culpable negligence and inattention.

Thus the number likely to remain uneducated, and to grow up without just perceptions of their duties, religious, social, and political, is really of appalling magnitude, and such as to appeal with affecting earnestness to a parental Legislature."

If there shall appear any want of agreement between these statements and the returns made by the deputy marshals, no one need be in doubt in relation to which has the strongest claims for credence. These statements were communicated by the governor of a proud state to the Legislature in his annual message. Unlike the statistics collected by the marshals, each case was subjected to an infallible test; for no man who could make a scrawl in the similitude of his name would submit to the mortification of making his mark, and leaving it on record in a written application for a marriage license. The requisition was made upon the officers of the courts, and the evidence, which was of a doc.u.mentary or judicial character, is the highest known to the law. The result was, that almost one fourth of all the men applying for marriage licenses--more than thirty-three hundred in three years--were unable to write their names! And Governor Campbell clearly intimates an opinion that "the education of females is in a condition of much greater neglect!"

In round numbers, the free white population of Virginia over twenty years of age is three hundred and thirty thousand. One fourth of this number is eighty-two and a half thousand, which, according to the evidence presented by Governor Campbell, is the lowest possible limit at which the minimum of adults unable to read and write can be stated. But the census number is less than fifty-nine thousand, making a difference of nearly twenty-four thousand, or more than forty per cent.

There are several states of about the same rank as Virginia in the educational scale. Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina sink even below her. The last-named state, with a free white population over twenty years of age of less than 210,000, has the appalling number, even according to the census, of 56,609 who are unable to read and write. In other words, forty-two hundred more than one fourth of the whole free population over twenty years of age are, in the educational scale, absolutely _below zero_.

Now if to the five hundred and fifty thousand free white population in the United States over the age of twenty years who are unable to read and write, as shown by the census, we add forty per cent. for its under-estimates, as facts require us to do in the case of Virginia, it would increase the total to seven hundred and seventy thousand. Suppose one fourth of these only are voters--that is, deduct one half for females, and allow that one half of the male moiety is made up of persons either between twenty and twenty-one years of age, or of those who are unnaturalized, which is a most liberal allowance when we consider where the great ma.s.s of ignorance belongs, and that the number of ignorant immigrants is much less at the South than at the North--and we have =192,500= voters in the United States who are unable to read and write.

Now, at the presidential election for the same year that the census was taken, when, to use the graphic language of another, "every voter not absolutely in his winding sheet was carried to the polls, when the harvest field was so thoroughly swept that neither stubble nor tares were left for the gleaner," the majority for the successful candidate was =146,081=, more than =46,000= less than the estimated number of legal voters at that time in the United States unable to read and write.

At this election a larger majority of the electoral votes was given for the successful candidate than was ever given to any other President of the United States, with the exception of Mr. Monroe in =1820=, against whom there was but one vote. General Harrison's popular majority, also, was undoubtedly the largest by which any President of the United States has ever been elected, with the exception above mentioned of Mr. Monroe, and perhaps that of General Was.h.i.+ngton at his second election. And yet this majority, large as it was, was more than 46,000 less than the estimated number of our legal voters who, in the educational scale, are absolutely below zero.

And then it should be borne in mind that hundreds of thousands who are barely able to read and write may never have acquired "a knowledge of the true principles of government," which, in the language of Judge Story, at the head of this chapter, "is not only important and useful to Americans, but is absolutely indispensable to carry on the government of their choice, and to transmit it to posterity." It should also be borne in mind that popular virtue is not less essential to the stability of a free government than is general intelligence. Nay, more; if the liberties of this republic are more endangered by any one cla.s.s of people than by all others, that cla.s.s consists of intelligent but unprincipled political aspirants. The connection between ignorance and vice has already been referred to, and is well known among intelligent men; but by none so well, it may be, as by the unprincipled aspirant, who, by pandering to the vicious appet.i.tes of the ignorant and the vile, and then by base flattery p.r.o.nouncing them "highly intelligent, enlightened, and civilized," take advantage of their very want of qualification "to manufacture political capital." These are they to whom Lord Brougham refers when he says, "other men will form opinions for them, not according to truth and the interests of the people, but according to their own individual and selfish interest, which may, and most probably will, be contrary to that of the people at large." We can not, then, avoid coming to the unwelcome and dread conclusion that there is not at present in this country a sufficient degree of intelligence and virtue for the wise, or even the safe administration of its affairs.

It remains to consider whether existing provisions for the education of our country's youth are adequate to the wants of the American people.

EXISTING PROVISIONS FOR EDUCATION.--Of the seventeen millions of persons in the United States, according to the last census, =3,726,080=--one in five of the entire population--were free white children between the ages of five and fifteen years. This is the lowest estimate I have ever known made of the ages between which children should regularly attend school.

The ages usually stated between which children generally should attend school at least ten months during the year, are from four to sixteen, or from four to eighteen years, and sometimes from four to twenty or twenty-one years.

But what is the actual attendance upon the primary and common schools of the country? It is only =1,845,244=, or, to vary the expression and give it more definiteness, the total number of children in attendance upon all our schools, any part of the year, is twenty thousand less than one half of the free-born white children in the United States between the ages of five and fifteen years! And then it should be borne in mind that the same general motives which would lead to an under-statement in regard to the number of persons unable to read and write, would lead to an over-statement in regard to the number of those attending school. The educational statistics of some of the states, made out by competent and faithful school officers, show that the whole number of scholars that attended school any part of the time during the school year 1840-41--the year the census was taken--was several thousand less than the number according to the census.[60]

[60] In Ma.s.sachusetts, according to a statement made by the Secretary of the Board of Education, the whole number of scholars who were in all the public schools any part of the school year 1840-41 was but 155,041, and the average attendance was, in the winter, 116,398, and in the summer, 96,802; while the number given in the census is 158,351, which is greater by 3310 than the entire number that attended school _any part of the year_, according to the returns, and 55,751 more than the average attendance for half of the year.

If we were to embrace in the estimate the whole number of students in attendance at the universities, colleges, academies, and seminaries of learning of every grade, it would not materially vary the result, for all these taken together are less than one tenth part of the number in attendance upon the common schools. That the number of children attending schools of any grade is less than might be inferred from the foregoing statements, will be apparent when we consider the following facts.

In the United States, taken together as a whole, only one person in ten of the population attends any school whatever any part of the year. Now it is well known that a large number of children under five years of age attend school in many parts of the country, and a much greater number that are over fifteen years of age. I have already said that the entire number of children in attendance upon all our schools is twenty thousand less than one half of the entire number of free-born white children in the United States between the ages of five and fifteen years. This leaves two millions of children uninstructed. We shall have a more just view of the scantiness of our provisions for adequate national education if to this number, appalling as it is, we add the total number of those attending under five and over fifteen in various portions of the country.

Again: no one supposes that in any part of the Union adequate provisions are made for the education of the rising generation, even in a single state. But in the New England states, and in New York and Michigan, one fourth part of the entire population attend school some part of the year. This is twice and a half the general average throughout the Union, and more than five times the average attendance in the majority of the remaining states.

In round numbers, the proportion of the entire population that attend school in the different states of the Union is, according to the census, in Maine, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Vermont, each, one in three. In Michigan,[61] Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, the proportion is one in four. In Rhode Island, it is one in five. In Ohio and New Jersey, each, one in six. In Pennsylvania, one in eight. In no other state is the proportion more than one in ten, while in ten states it is less than one in twenty-five.

[61] In determining the proportion for this state, the census for 1845 and the school returns for that year were the data used. In the other states I have been obliged to use the census returns of 1840.

In fixing this proportion, the nearest whole number has been used. In no state is the proportion in attendance upon the schools as high as one in three. Michigan heads the states in which the proportion is one in four.

In this state the proportion is somewhat greater than one in four; it is, however, nearer this than one in three. In the other states the proportion is less than one in four. The states are all arranged according to the size of the fraction, there being less difference in the attendance in Vermont and Michigan than in the latter state and New York.

At the time the last census was taken, Michigan had recently been admitted into the Union, and the state government being but just organized, the school system had only gone partially into operation.

According to the census of =1840=, the proportion in attendance upon the schools of this state was only one in seven. During the interval from =1840= to =1845=, at which time the census of this state was again taken, the population had increased from two hundred and twelve thousand to upward of three hundred thousand, showing an increase of about fifty per cent.; the number of primary schools had increased from less than ten thousand to more than twenty thousand, making an increase of more than one hundred per cent.; and the attendance upon these schools had advanced from thirty thousand to seventy-six thousand, giving the very remarkable increase of one hundred and fifty per cent. in five years, when, as already stated, the proportion in attendance upon the common schools was more than one in four of the entire population. And during the next two years the number of children in attendance upon the schools increased from seventy-six thousand to one hundred and eight thousand, showing an advance of more than forty per cent. from 1845 to 1847.

It is gratifying to know that this important interest, which underlies all others, is receiving increased attention in various portions of the United States. Among the most striking ill.u.s.trations that I have noticed of these indications of national improvement, I will instance two.[62]

The following interesting items of fact are gleaned from an address by the superintendent before the public schools of New Orleans, February 22d, 1850--a most befitting day for a school celebration. These statistics strike us more forcibly when we consider that they relate to the metropolis of the South, and to the capital of a state in which, according to the last census, only one person in one hundred received instruction in the primary and common schools of the state. The public schools of the second munic.i.p.ality of New Orleans were established in 1842, comprising at that time less than three hundred pupils. Now the constant attendance is upward of three thousand--ten times what it was eight years ago. But even this increase, large as it may seem, is not sufficient to const.i.tute the proportion in attendance upon the schools of the state even one in fifty of the entire population.

[62] My information is derived from the "Southern Journal of Education"

for May, 1850--a monthly for the promotion of popular intelligence, published from Knoxville, Tenn.--Samuel A. Jewett, Editor and Publisher.

This journal is ably conducted, and has now reached its third volume.

This certainly is a very encouraging omen, especially when we consider that it has so long survived in a state where, according to the last census, only one in thirty-three of the entire population attended school. May it long continue to do good service in this important cause.

Kentucky furnishes the other indication of improvement which I propose to notice. In this state, according to the last census, only one in thirty-three of the entire population attended the common schools during any part of the year. The number of children at the present time in that commonwealth, as reported by the second auditor, between the ages of five and sixteen, leaving out the colored children, is one hundred and ninety-three thousand. The number provided with schools, as reported in 1847, was twenty-one thousand; in 1848, thirty-three thousand; and in 1849, eighty-seven thousand; showing a clear advance in two years of sixty-six thousand.[63] But, with all this improvement, one hundred and five thousand children do not derive any personal benefit from the public school system. In other words, eighteen thousand more children in this state are still growing up without instruction than as yet attend the schools. And the utter inadequacy of the common school privileges of even these will be apparent when it is understood that in the great majority of the districts more than nine tenths of the schools are taught but three months during the year.