CHAPTER VIII.

THE IMPORTANCE OF POPULAR EDUCATION.

Education, as the means of improving the mural and intellectual

faculties, is, under all circumstances, a subject of the most

imposing consideration. To rescue man from that state of degradation

to which he is doomed unless redeemed by education; to unfold his

physical, intellectual, and moral powers, and to fit him for those

high destinies which his Creator has prepared for him, can not fail

to excite the most ardent sensibility of the philosopher and

philanthropist. A comparison of the savage that roams through the

forest with the enlightened inhabitant of a civilized country would

be a brief but impressive representation of the momentous importance

of education.--_Report of School Commissioners, New York_, 1812.

He who has carefully perused the preceding chapters of this work is

already aware that we regard the subject of popular education as one of

paramount importance. The object of devoting a chapter to the special

consideration of this subject at this time is, if possible, to remove

from the mind any remaining doubts in relation to it. The reader will

bear in mind that we regard education as having reference to the _whole

man_--the body, the mind, and the heart; and that its object, and, when

rightly directed, its effect, is to make him a complete creature after

his kind. To his frame it should give vigor, activity, and beauty; to

his intellect, power and thoughtfulness; and to his heart, virtue and

felicity.

We shall be the better prepared to appreciate the importance and

necessity of a judicious system of training and instruction if we

consider that, in its absence, every individual will be educated by

circumstances. Let it be borne in mind, then, that all the children in

every community will be educated somewhere and somehow; and that it

devolves upon citizens and parents to determine whether the children of

the present generation shall receive their training in the

_school-house_ or in the _streets_; and if in the former, whether in

good or poor schools.

In the discharge of my official duties in this state, I had occasion to

visit two counties in 1846 in which there were no organized common

schools.[30] They were not, however, without places of instruction, for

in the shire town of each of those counties there were a billiard-room,

bar-rooms, and bowling-alleys. I was forcibly impressed with the remark

of an Indian chief residing in one of those counties. As he was passing

along the streets one day, he discovered a second bowling-alley in

process of erection. He paused, and, surveying it attentively, remarked

to those at work upon it as follows: "You have here another long

building going up rapidly; and," he added, "_is this the place where our

children are to be educated?_" Such keen and well-merited rebuke rarely

falls from human lips. Those two bowling-alleys, with their

bars--indispensable appendages--were thronged from six o'clock in the

morning until past midnight, six days in the week. They were, moreover,

the very places where many of the youth of that village were receiving

their education. And who were their teachers? Idlers, tipplers,

gamblers, profane persons, Sabbath-breakers. Mark well this truth: _as

is the teacher, so will be the school_. Those pupils will graduate, it

may be, at our poor-houses, at our county jails, or at the state

penitentiary. These debasing and corrupting appendages of civilization

spent not all their influence upon the white man; and this is what gave

pungency to the withering satire of the chief. They were at once working

the ruin of the red man and of his pale neighbor.

[30] Common schools have since been organized in both of those counties.

The rudest nations or individuals can not be said to be wholly without

education. Even the wildest savage is taught by his superiors not only

the best mode of procuring food and shelter known to his race, but also

the most adroit manner of defending himself and destroying his enemy.

But we use the term in a higher, broader, and more capacious sense, as

having reference to the whole man, and the whole duration of his being.

A volume might be filled in stating and illustrating the advantages of

education. We have only space to state and elucidate a few propositions.

We remark, then, first, that

EDUCATION DISSIPATES THE EVILS OF IGNORANCE.

Ignorance is one principal cause of the want of virtue, and of the

immoralities which abound in the world. Were we to take a survey of

the moral state of the world as delineated in the history of

nations, or as depicted by modern voyagers and travelers, we should

find abundant illustration of the truth of this remark. We should

find, in almost every instance, that ignorance of the character of

the true God, and false conceptions of the nature of the worship

and service he requires, have led, not only to the most obscene

practices and immoral abominations, but to the perpetration of the

most horrid cruelties.--DR. DICK.

The evils of ignorance are not few in number nor small in magnitude. The

whole history of the world justifies the statement that ignorant and

uncultivated mind is prone to sensuality and cruelty. In what countries,

let me ask, are the people most given to the lowest forms of animal

gratification, and most regardless of the lives and happiness of others?

Is it not in pagan lands, over which moral and intellectual darkness

broods, and where men are vile without shame, and cruel without remorse?

And if from pagan we pass to Christian countries, we shall find that

those in which education is least prevalent are the very ones in which

there is the most immorality, and the greatest indifference to the

sufferings of animated and sentient beings. Spain--in which, until

recently, there was but one newspaper printed, and in which only about

one in thirty five of the people are instructed in schools--has a

population about equal to that of England and Wales. Popular education

in the latter countries, although much behind several of the other

European states, is still greatly in advance of what it is in Spain, and

there is an equally marked difference in the state of morals in the

people of these countries. In England and Wales the whole number of

convictions for murder in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-six was

_thirteen_, and the number convicted for wounding, etc., with intent to

kill, was _fourteen_; while in Spain, the number convicted during the

same year was, for murder, _twelve hundred and thirty-three_! and for

maiming with intent to kill, _seventeen hundred and seventy-three_! or a

more than one hundred fold greater number than in the former countries.

Facts like these speak volumes in favor of the elevating influences of

popular education, while they show most conclusively the low and

degraded condition to which people will sink in countries in which

education is neglected.

Spain affords an apt illustration of the truth of the statement just

made, that ignorant and uncultivated people are prone to sensuality and

cruelty. Scenes of cruelty and blood constitute the favorite amusement

of the Spaniards, their greatest delight being in bull-fights. An

eye-witness describes the manner in which they conduct themselves during

these appalling scenes in the following language. "The intense interest

which they feel in this game is visible throughout, and often loudly

expressed. An astounding shout always accompanies a critical moment.

Whether it be the _bull_ or _man_ who is in danger, their joy is

excessive; but their greatest sympathy is given to the feats of the

BULL! If the picador receives the bull gallantly and forces him to

retreat, or if the matadore courageously faces and wounds the bull, they

applaud these acts of science and valor; but if the bull overthrow the

horse and his rider, or if the matadore miss his aim and the bull seems

ready to gore him, their delight knows no bounds. And it is certainly a

fine spectacle to see thousands of spectators rise simultaneously, as

they always do when the interest is intense. The greatest and most

crowded theater in Europe presents nothing half so imposing as this. But

how barbarous, how brutal is the whole exhibition! Could an English

audience witness the scenes that are repeated every week in Madrid, a

universal burst of '_shame_!' would follow the spectacle of a horse

gored and bleeding, and actually treading upon his own entrails while he

gallops round the arena. Even the appearance of the goaded bull could

not be borne, panting, covered with wounds and blood, lacerated by

darts, and yet brave and resolute to the end.

"The spectacle continued two hours and a half, and during that time

there were seven bulls killed and six horses. When the last bull was

dispatched, the people immediately rushed into the arena, and the

carcass was dragged out amid the most deafening shouts."--_Spain in

1830_, vol. i., p. 191.

The same writer, after describing another fight, in which one bull had

killed three horses and one man, and remained master of the arena,

remarks, that "this was a time to observe the character of the people.

When the unfortunate picador was killed, in place of a general

exclamation of horror and loud expressions of pity, the universal cry

was 'Que es bravo ese toro! ('Ah, the admirable bull!') The whole scene

produced the most unbounded delight; the greater the horror, the greater

was the shouting, and the more vehement the expressions of satisfaction.

I did not perceive a single female avert her head or betray the

slightest symptom of wounded feeling."--Vol. i., p. 195.

A correct system of public instruction develops a character widely

different from that here brought to light. Instead of a love for vicious

excitement, it cultivates a taste for simple and innocent pleasures, and

gives to its subjects a command over their passions, and a disposition

habitually to control them. It acquaints them with their duty, and

enables them to find their highest pleasure in its discharge. They order

their pursuits and choose their employments with reference to their own

advantage, it is true; but still, a higher, and the controlling motive

with them is, the promotion of the best good of the community in which

they live. In short, their supreme desire is to co-operate with the

beneficent Creator in advancing the permanent interests of the whole

human family; in themselves obeying, and leading others to obey, all the

laws which God has ordained for the government and well-being of his

creatures.

Education, we said, dissipates the evils of ignorance. But in this

country we hardly know what popular ignorance is. The most illiterate

among us have derived many and inestimable advantages from our systems

of public instruction. Occasionally persons are found among us who can

neither read nor write. But even such persons insensibly imbibe ideas

and moral influences from the more cultivated society about them which,

in countries less favored, are denied to multitudes. Individuals who

have had no early advantages for learning, who have never even entered a

school-house, but have grown up amid a generally intelligent population,

trained by the institutions established by our fathers, have in many

instances acquired a mental character and influence which, but for these

fortuitous circumstances, they could not have attained. The very

excellence of our systems of education in many states of the Union, and

the vital and pervading influence of the schools upon the public mind,

reaching as they do, and improving even those that remain ignorant of

letters, do not allow us to see the full extent of our obligation to

them. This remark applies to all civilized countries where any systems

of general education are adopted, but perhaps not to so great an extent

in any other country as in our own.

The evils which flow from ignorance are deplorable enough in the case of

individuals, although, as we have seen, the disastrous consequences are

limited in the case of those who live surrounded by an intelligent

community. But the general ignorance of large numbers and entire classes

of men, unreached by the elevating influence of the educated, acting

under the unchastened stimulus of the passions, and excited by the

various causes of discontent which are constantly occurring in the

progress of human affairs, is not unfrequently productive of scenes, the

contemplation of which makes humanity shudder. The following extract

from a foreign journal affords a pertinent illustration of the evils

which flow from popular ignorance. It relates to the outrages committed

by the peasantry in a part of Hungary in consequence of the ravages of

the cholera in that region.

"The suspicion that the cholera was caused by poisoning the wells was

universal among the peasantry of the counties of Zips and Zemplin, and

every one was fully convinced of its truth. The first commotion arose in

Klucknow, where, it is said, some peasants died in consequence of taking

the preservatives; whether by an immoderate use of medicine, or whether

they thought they were to take chloride of lime internally, is not

known. This story, with a sudden and violent breaking out of the cholera

at Klucknow, led the peasants to a notion of the poisoning of the wells,

which spread like lightning. In the sequel, in the attack of the estate

of Count Czaki, a servant of the chief bailiff was on the point of being

murdered, when, to save his life, he offered to disclose something

important. He said that he received from his master two pounds of

poisonous powder, with orders to throw it into the wells, and, with an

ax over his head, took oath publicly, in the church, to the truth of his

statement. These statements, and the fact that the peasants, when they

forcibly entered the houses of the land-owners, every where found

chloride of lime, which they took for the poisonous powder, confirmed

their suspicions, and drove the people to madness. In this state of

excitement, they committed the most appalling excesses. Thus, for

instance, when a detachment of thirty soldiers, headed by an ensign,

attempted to restore order in Klucknow, the peasants, who were ten times

their number, fell upon them; the soldiers were released, but the ensign

was bound, tortured with scissors and knives, then beheaded, and his

head fixed on a pike as a trophy. A civil officer in company with the

military was drowned, his carriage broken, and, chloride of lime being

found in the carriage, one of the inmates was compelled to eat it till

he vomited blood, which again confirmed the notion of poison. On the

attack of the house of the lord at Klucknow, the countess saved her life

by piteous entreaties: but the chief bailiff, in whose house chloride of

lime was unhappily found, was killed, together with his son, a little

daughter, a clerk, a maid, and two students who boarded with him. So the

bands went from village to village; wherever a nobleman or a physician

was found, death was his lot; and in a short time it was known that the

high constable of the county of Zemplin, and several counts, nobles, and

parish priests, had been murdered. A clergyman was hanged because he

refused to take an oath that he had thrown poison into a well; the eyes

of a countess were put out, and innocent children cut to pieces. Count

Czaki, having first ascertained that his family was safe, fled from his

estate at the risk of his life; but he was stopped at Kirtchtrauf,

pelted with stones, and wounded all over, torn from his horse, and only

saved by a worthy merchant who fell on him, crying, 'Now I have got the

rascal.' He drew the count into a neighboring convent, where his wounds

were dressed, and a refuge afforded him. His secretary was struck from

his horse with an ax, but saved in a similar manner, and in the evening

conveyed with his master to Leutschau."[31]

[31] Quoted from an address delivered in Boston by Edward Everett.

A little knowledge on the part of the peasantry would have prevented

these horrible scenes. Had they learned even the elements of physiology

and chemistry, they would have known that cleanliness is essential to

health at all times, and that during the prevalence of a malignant

epidemic it is doubly needful. They would have known, also, that

chloride of lime is not a medicine to be taken internally, but that it

is very useful for disinfecting offensive apartments, and that its

tendency, when properly used, would be to counteract the cause of the

disease which they so much dreaded.

Among all nations, and in all ages of the world, ignorance has not only

debarred mankind from many exquisite and sublime enjoyments, but has

created innumerable unfounded alarms, which greatly increase the sum of

human misery. In the early ages of the world, a total eclipse of the sun

or of the moon was regarded with the utmost consternation, as if some

unusual catastrophe had been about to befall the universe. Believing

that the moon in an eclipse was sickening or dying, through the

influence of enchanters, the trembling spectators had recourse to the

ringing of bells, the sounding of trumpets, the beating of brazen

vessels, and to loud and horrid exclamations, in order to break the

enchantment, and to drown the muttering of witches, that the moon might

not hear them. Nor are such foolish opinions and customs yet banished

from the world.

Comets, too, with their blazing tails, were long regarded, and still are

by many, as harbingers of divine vengeance, presaging famines and

inundations, or the downfall of princes and the destruction of empires.

The northern lights have been frequently gazed at with similar

apprehensions, whole provinces having been thrown into consternation by

the fantastic coruscations of these lambent meteors. Some pretend to see

in these harmless lights armies mixing in fierce encounter and fields

streaming with blood, while others behold states overthrown,

earthquakes, inundations, pestilences, and the most dreadful calamities.

Because some one or other of these calamities formerly happened soon

after the appearance of a comet or the blaze of an aurora, therefore

they are considered either as the causes or the prognostics of such

events.

Popular ignorance has given rise to the practice of _judicial

astrology_; an art which, with all its foolish notions so fatal to the

peace of mankind, has been practiced in every period of time. Under a

belief that the characters and the fates of men are dependent on the

various aspects of the stars and conjunctions of the planets, the most

unfounded apprehensions, as well as the most delusive hopes, have been

excited by the professors of this fallacious science. Such impositions

on the credulity of mankind are founded on the grossest absurdity and

the most palpable ignorance of the nature of things; still, in the midst

of the light of science which the present century has shed upon the

world, the astrologer meets with a rich support[32] even in the

metropolis of Great Britain; and soothsayers, if not astrologers, get

great gain by their craft in various portions of the United States. The

extensive annual sale of hundreds of thousands of copies of almanacs

that abound in astrological predictions in the United Stales and in

Great Britain, and the extent to which they are consulted, affords a

striking proof of the belief which is still attached to the doctrines of

this fallacious science, and of the ignorance and credulity from which

such a belief proceeds.

[32] See Appendix to Dick's Improvement of Society, p. 338.

Shooting stars, fiery meteors, lunar rainbows, and other atmospherical

phenomena, have likewise been considered by some as ominous of impending

calamities, but they are regarded in a very different light by

scientific observers. The most sublime phenomenon of shooting stars of

which the world has furnished any record was witnessed throughout the

United States on the morning of the 13th of November, 1833. This

astonishing exhibition covered no inconsiderable portion of the earth's

surface. The first appearance was every where that of fire-works of the

most imposing grandeur, covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads

of fire-balls resembling sky-rockets; but the most brilliant sky-rockets

and fire-works of art bear less relation to the splendors of this

celestial exhibition than the twinkling of the most tiny star to the

broad glare of the noonday sun. Their coruscations were bright,

gleaming, and incessant, and they fell thick as the flakes in the early

snows of December. The whole heavens seemed in motion, and suggested to

some the awful grandeur of the image employed in the Apocalypse upon the

opening of the sixth seal, when "the stars of heaven fell unto the

earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken

of a mighty wind."

While these scenes of grandeur were viewed with unspeakable delight by

enlightened scientific observers, the ignorant and superstitious were

overpowered with horror and dismay. The description which a gentleman of

South Carolina gave of the effect produced by this phenomenon upon his

ignorant blacks will apply well to many hardly better informed white

persons. "I was suddenly awakened," said he, "by the most distressing

cries that ever fell upon my ears. Shrieks of horror and cries of mercy

I could hear from most of the negroes of three plantations, amounting in

all to about six or eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the

cause, I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name: I arose,

and, taking my sword, stood at the door. At this moment I heard the same

voice still beseeching me to rise and saying, 'O! my God, the world is

on fire!' I then opened the door, and it is difficult to say which

excited me most, the awfulness of the scene or the distressed cries of

the negroes. Upward of one hundred lay prostrate on the ground, some

speechless, and some with the bitterest cries, but most with their

hands raised, imploring God to save the world and them. The scene was

truly awful, for never did rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell

toward the earth; east, west, north, and south, it was the same."

Those harmless meteors, the _ignes fatui_, which hover above moist and

fenny places in the night-time, emitting a glimmering light, have been

regarded by the ignorant as malicious spirits endeavoring to deceive the

bewildered traveler and lead him to destruction. The plaintive note of

the mourning dove, the ticking noise of the little insect called the

death-watch, the howling of a dog in the night-time, the meeting of a

bitch with whelps, or a snake lying in the road, the breaking of a

looking-glass, and even the falling of salt from the table, and the

curling of a fiber of wick in a burning candle, together with many other

equally harmless incidents, have been regarded with apprehensions of

terror, being considered as unfailing signs of impending disasters or of

approaching death.

Dr. Dick remarks, that in the Highlands of Scotland--and it should be

borne in mind that the Scotch are, as a nation, better instructed, and

more moral and religious in their habits, than any other people in

Europe--the motions and appearances of the clouds were, not long ago,

considered ominous of disastrous events. On the evening before new

year's day, if a black cloud appeared in any part of the horizon, it was

thought to prognosticate a plague, a famine, or the death of some great

man in that part of the country over which it seemed to hang; and in

order to ascertain the place threatened by the omen, the motions of the

clouds were often watched through the whole night. In the same country,

the inhabitants regard certain days as _unlucky_, or ominous of bad

fortune. The day of the week on which the third of May falls is deemed

unlucky throughout the year.

With a very slight change, a part of this description would apply well

to our own country, even up to the present time. How many thousands of

days are lost annually in the United States in consequence of

superstitious fears in relation to setting out upon a journey, entering

upon a new pursuit of any kind, or even beginning to plant or plow on

Friday, the unlucky day of the Americans. How many persons have had

misfortunes attend them all their lives because they were born, or

christened, or married on Friday! How many houses have been burned

because they were begun, raised, or moved into on Friday! How many

steamboats and vessels have been burned or wrecked because they were

launched or sailed on Friday! And yet, strange as it may seem, this is

the very day on which Columbus set sail on a voyage that resulted in the

discovery of the New World.

Many people, and in some instances whole communities, always commence

plowing, sowing, and reaping on Tuesday, though by this rule the most

favorable weather for these purposes is frequently lost. Others, again,

will not, on any account, perform certain kinds of labor on Friday. The

age of the moon is also much attended to in many parts of the world.

Among the vulgar Highlanders, an opinion prevails, that if a house takes

fire while the moon is in the decrease, the family will from that time

decline in its circumstances and sink into poverty. In this country,

equally unfounded and ridiculous opinions are entertained. Passing by

the more commonly received opinions that if swine are killed in the old

of the moon, the pork will shrink in the pot; that seed sown at this

time will be less likely to do well, etc., etc., I will mention one or

two instances of opinions which, although equally well founded, are

less commonly received, and which may therefore more forcibly impress

the popular mind. A few years ago, I spent some months in a neighboring

state, in a community where the belief was commonly entertained that

shingles should not be laid nor stakes driven in the old of the moon,

because the former would be more likely to warp, and the latter to be

thrown by the frost. The same and kindred opinions are extensively held

in various portions of the United States.

These are a few, and but a very few, of the superstitious notions and

vain fears by which the great majority of the human race, in every age

and country, have been enslaved, as he who will take the pains to peruse

Dr. Dick's admirable treatise on the improvement of society by the

diffusion of knowledge can not fail to be convinced. That such absurd

notions should ever have prevailed is a most grating and humiliating

thought, when we consider the noble faculties with which man is endowed.

That they still prevail to a great extent, even in our own country, is a

striking proof that as yet we are, as a people, but just emerging from

the gloom of intellectual darkness. The prevalence of such opinions is

to be regretted, not only on account of the groundless alarms they

create, but chiefly on account of the false ideas they inspire with

regard to the nature of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and of his

arrangements in the government of the world. He whose mind is

enlightened with true science perceives throughout all nature the most

striking evidences of benevolent design, and rejoices in the benignity

of the Great Parent of the universe, discovering nothing in the

arrangements of the Creator, in any department of his works, which has a

direct tendency to produce pain to any intelligent or sensitive being.

The superstitious man, on the contrary, contemplates the sky, the air,

the waters, and the earth as filled with malicious beings, ever ready to

haunt him with terror or to plot his destruction. The former

contemplates the Deity directing the movements of the material world by

fixed and invariable laws, which none but himself can counteract or

suspend. The latter views these movements as continually liable to be

controlled by capricious and malignant beings to gratify the most

trivial passions. How very different, of course, must be their

conceptions and feelings respecting the attributes and government of the

Supreme Being! While the one views him as the infinitely wise and

benevolent Father, whose paternal care and goodness inspire confidence

and affection, the other must regard him, in a certain degree, as a

capricious being, and offer up his adorations under the influence of

fear.

These and like notions have also an evident tendency to habituate the

mind to false principles and processes of reasoning which unfit it for

legitimate conclusions in its researches after truth. They manifestly

chain down the understanding, and unfit it for the appreciation of those

noble and enlarged views which revelation and modern science exhibit of

the order, extent, and economy of the universe. It is lamentable to

reflect that so many thousands of beings endowed with the faculty of

reason, who can not by any means be persuaded of the motion of the

earth, and the distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies, should

swallow, without the least hesitation, opinions ten thousand times more

improbable. Notwithstanding the mathematical certainty of the truth of

the Copernican system of astronomy, I have never yet become extensively

acquainted with any community in which I have not found many persons

professing a respectable degree of intelligence, and even official

members of orthodox churches, who entirely discredit its sublime

teachings; and yet some of these very persons find little difficulty in

believing that an old woman can transform herself into a hare, and wing

her way through the air on a broomstick. What contracted notions such

persons must have of the almightiness of the Deity, and of the infinite

depth of meaning of the following and like passages of Scripture: The

heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy

work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth

knowledge.--_Ps._ xix., 1-2.

It has been already remarked, that the whole history of the world

justifies the statement that ignorant and uncultivated mind is prone to

sensuality and cruelty. Spain and Hungary were referred to in

illustration. We are now prepared to remark, what is worse still, that

where such superstitious notions as we have been considering are held,

even by persons who are somewhat educated, they almost invariably lead

to the perpetration of deeds of cruelty and injustice. Many of the

barbarities committed in pagan countries, both in their religious

worship and their civil polity, and most of the cruelties inflicted on

the victims of the Romish Inquisition, have flowed from this source.[33]

Nor are the annals of Great Britain and the United States deficient in

examples of this kind. About the commencement of the last century, the

belief in witchcraft, which was almost universal throughout Christendom,

was held in both of these countries. The laws of England, which admitted

its existence and punished it with death, were adopted by the Puritans

of New England, and in less than twenty years from the founding of the

colony, one individual was tried and executed for the supposed crime.

Half a century later the delusion broke out in Salem. A minister, whose

daughter and niece were subject to convulsions accompanied by

extraordinary symptoms, supposing they were bewitched, cast his

suspicions on an Indian woman who lived in the house, and who was

whipped until she confessed herself a witch; and the truth of the

confession, although obtained in this way, was not doubted. During the

same year more than fifty persons were terrified into the confession of

witchcraft, twenty of whom were put to death. Neither age, sex, nor

station afforded any safeguard against a charge for this supposed crime.

Women and children not only were its victims, but magistrates were

condemned, and a clergyman of the highest respectability was among the

executed. So late as 1722 a woman was burned for witchcraft in Scotland,

which was among the last executions in that country.

[33] In the Duchy of Lorraine, nine hundred females were delivered over

to the flames for being _witches_, by one inquisitor alone. Under this

accusation, it is reckoned that upward of _thirty thousand women_ have

perished by the hands of the Inquisition.--Quoted by Dr. Dick from

"_Inquisition Unmasked_."

It appears that these superstitious notions, so far from being innocent

and harmless speculations, lead to the most deplorable results; they

ought, therefore, to be undermined and thoroughly eradicated by all

persons who wish to promote the happiness and well-being of general

society. This duty is especially incumbent upon parents and teachers,

and can be effected only by rendering correct early education universal.

Ignorance of the laws and economy of nature is the one great source of

these absurd opinions. They have not only no foundation in nature or

experience, but are directly opposed to both. In proportion, then, as we

advance in our researches into Nature's economy and laws, shall we

perceive their futility and absurdity. As in other cases, take away the

cause, and the effect will be removed.

_Education will dissipate all these evils._ It is true that an

acquaintance with a number of dead languages, with Roman and Grecian

antiquities, with the subtleties of metaphysics, with pagan mythology,

and with politics and poetry, may coexist with these superstitions, as

was true in the case of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, who believed in

ghosts and in the _second sight_. However important in other respects

these departments of an extensive and varied education may be, they do

not form an effectual barrier against the admission of superstitious

opinions. In order to do this, the mind must be directed to the study of

the material universe, to contemplate the various appearances it

presents, and to mark well the uniform results of those invariable laws

by which it is governed. In particular, the attention should be directed

to those discoveries which have been made by philosophers in the

different departments of nature and art during the last two centuries.

For this purpose, the study of natural history, as recording the various

facts respecting the atmosphere, the waters, the earth, and animated

beings, combined with the study of natural philosophy and astronomy, as

explaining the causes of the phenomena of nature, will have a happy

tendency to eradicate from the mind superstitious and false notions, and

at the same time will present to view objects of delightful

contemplation. Let a person be once thoroughly convinced that nature is

uniform in her operations, and governed by regular laws impressed by an

all-wise and benevolent Being, and he will soon be inspired with

confidence, and will not easily be alarmed at any occasional phenomena

which at first sight might appear as exceptions to the general rule.

Let persons be taught, for example, that eclipses are occasioned merely

by the shadow of one opaque body falling upon another; that they are

the necessary result of the inclination of the moon's orbit to that of

the earth; that, if these orbits were in the same plane, there would be

an eclipse of the sun and of the moon every month, the former occurring

at the change, and the latter at the full of the moon; that the times

when they do actually take place depend on the new or full moon

happening at or near the points of intersection of the orbits of the

earth and moon, and that other planets which have moons experience

eclipses of a similar nature. Let them also be taught that the _comets_

are regular bodies belonging to our system, which finish their

revolutions and appear and disappear in stated periods of time; that the

northern lights, though seldom seen in southern climes, are frequent in

the regions of the North, and supply the inhabitants with light in the

absence of the sun, and have probably a relation to the magnetic and

electric fluids; that the _ignes fatui_ are harmless lights, formed by

the ignition of a certain species of gas produced in the soils above

which they hover; and that the notes of the death-watch, so far from

being presages of death, are ascertained to be the notes of _love_ and

presages of hymeneal intercourse among these little insects.

Let rational information of this kind be imparted to people generally,

and they will learn to contemplate nature with tranquillity and

composure. A more beneficial effect than this will at the same time be

produced, for those very objects which were formerly beheld with alarm

will now be converted into sources of enjoyment, and be contemplated

with emotions of delight.

To remove the groundless apprehensions which arise from the fear of

invisible and incorporeal beings, let persons be instructed in the

various optical illusions to which we are subject, arising from the

intervention of fogs, and the indistinctness of vision in the

night-time, which makes us frequently mistake a bush that is near us for

a large tree at a distance, and let them be taught that under the

influence of these illusions a timid imagination will transform the

indistinct image of a cow or a horse into a terrific phantom of a

monstrous size. Let them also be taught, by a selection of

well-authenticated facts, the powerful influence of the imagination in

creating ideal forms, especially when under the dominion of fear; the

effects produced by the workings of conscience when harassed by guilt;

let them be taught the effects produced by lively dreams, by strong

doses of opium, by drunkenness, hysteric passions, madness, and other

disorders that affect the mind. Let the experiments of optics, and the

striking phenomena produced by electricity, galvanism, magnetism, and

the different gases, be exhibited to their view, together with details

of the results which have been produced by various mechanical

contrivances. In fine, let their attention be directed to the foolish,

whimsical, and extravagant notions attributed to apparitions, and to

their inconsistency with the wise and benevolent arrangements of the

Governor of the universe.

There is no rational foundation for entertaining any doubts but that,

could such instructions as I have suggested be universally given, the

effect would be the banishment of superstitions of the nature

contemplated from among mankind; _for they have uniformly produced this

effect on every mind which has been thus enlightened_. Where is the man

to be found whose mind is enlightened by the doctrines and discoveries

of modern science, and who yet remains the slave of superstitious

notions and vain fears? Of all the philosophers of America and Europe,

is there one who is alarmed at an eclipse, at a comet, at an _ignis

fatuus_, or at the notes of a death-watch? or who postpones his

experiments on account of what is called an unlucky day? Who ever heard

of a specter appearing to such a person, dragging him from bed at the

dead hour of midnight, to wander through the forest, trembling with

fear? Such beings appear only to the ignorant and illiterate, at least

to those who are unacquainted with natural science, and we never hear of

their appearing to any who did not previously believe in their

existence. But should philosophers be freed from such terrific visions,

if substantial knowledge has not the power of banishing them from the

mind? Why should supernatural beings feel so shy in conversing with men

of science? These would, indeed, be the fittest persons to whom they

might impart their secrets, and communicate information respecting the

invisible world; but it never falls to their lot to be favored with such

visits. It may therefore be concluded that the diffusion of useful

knowledge among mankind would infallibly dissipate those groundless

fears which have banished much of happiness from the human family, and

particularly among the lower orders of society.[34]

[34] Dr. Dick, to whom I have frequently referred, and whose writings I

have freely consulted, expresses in a note a sentiment in which I fully

concur. "It would be unfair," says he, "to infer, from any expression

here used, that the author denies the possibility of supernatural

visions and appearances. We are assured from the records of sacred

history that beings of an order superior to the human race have 'at

sundry times and in divers manners' made their appearance to men. But

there is the most marked difference between vulgar apparitions and the

celestial messengers to which the records of revelation refer. They

appeared not to old women and clowns, but to patriarchs, prophets, and

apostles. They appeared not to frighten the timid and to create

unnecessary alarm, but to declare 'tidings of great joy.' They appeared

not to reveal such paltry secrets as the place where a pot of gold or

silver is concealed, or where a lost ring may be found, but to

communicate intelligence worthy of a God to reveal, and of the utmost

importance for man to receive. In these and many other respects, there

is the most striking contrast between popular ghosts and the

supernatural communications and appearances recorded in Scripture."

I might, perhaps, safely dismiss this subject, and proceed to the

consideration of other topics; but, before doing so, it may be well to

state that many of the views here presented, and all that come within

the range of the subjects discussed by him, are fully sustained by Dr.

Lardner, whose popular lectures on science and art have been so well

received both in Europe and America. His publishers justly remark, that

"probably no public lecturer ever continued, for the same length of

time, to collect around him so numerous audiences." The author himself

states, in the preface to his Lectures,[35] that from November, 1841,

when he commenced his public lectures in the lecture-room of Clinton

Hall, in New York, to the close of the year 1844, when he concluded his

public labors in this country, he "visited every considerable city and

town of the Union, from Boston to New Orleans, and from New York to St.

Louis. Most of the principal cities were twice visited, and several

courses were given in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Nor did the

appetite for this species of intellectual entertainment appear to flag

by repetition."

[35] In two large volumes, published by Greeley and McElrath, New York.

I can not forbear making a few quotations from the preface to the work

under consideration, which are creditable to the comparative

intelligence of the American people, and show the avidity with which

they seek instruction and useful knowledge. Dr. Lardner observes, that

"it was usual on each evening to deliver from two to four of the essays

which compose the contents of the present volumes, and the duration of

the entertainment was from two to three hours. On every occasion the

most profound interest was evinced on the part of the audience, and the

most unremitting and silent attention was given. These assemblies

consisted of persons of both sexes, of every age, from the elder classes

of pupils in the schools to their grandfathers and grandmothers.

Frequently the audiences amounted to twelve hundred, and sometimes, as

at the Philadelphia Museum, they exceeded two thousand. Nor was the

manifestation of this interest confined, as might be imagined, to the

northern Atlantic cities, where education is known to be attended to,

and where, as in New England, the diffusion of useful knowledge is

regarded as a paramount duty of the state. The same crowded assemblies

were collected, for a long succession of nights, in the largest theaters

of each of the southern and western cities; in the Charleston Theater;

the Mobile Theater; the St. Charles Theater, New Orleans; the Vicksburg

and Jackson Theaters, Mississippi; the St. Louis Theater, Missouri; and

in the theaters of Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and other western and central

cities.

"It can not be denied that such facts are symptomatic of a very

remarkable condition of the public mind, more especially among a people

who are admitted to be, more than any other nation, engrossed by

money-getting and by the more material pursuits of life. The less

pretension to eloquence and the attractive graces of oratory the

lecturer can offer, the more surprising is the result, and the more

creditable to the intelligence of the American people. It is certain

that a similar intellectual entertainment, clogged, as it necessarily

was, with a pecuniary condition of admission, would fail to attract an

audience even in the most polished and enlightened cities of Europe."

While these statements are highly creditable to the American people,

the lectures themselves contain paragraphs which show that the popular

mind even in our own country is not sufficiently enlightened to

eradicate the superstitions just considered.

THE MOON AND THE WEATHER.--Dr. Lardner, in a lecture on the moon, in

answer to the question, Does the moon influence the weather? says,[36]

It is asserted, first, that at the epochs of new and full moon, and at

the quarters, there is generally a change of weather; and, secondly,

that the phases of the moon, or, in other words, the relative position

of the moon and sun in regard to the earth, is the cause of these

changes. Now these and kindred opinions are very extensively held in

this country. But the doctor refers to meteorological tables,

constructed in various countries after the most extensive and careful

observation, and the result is that no correspondence exists between the

condition of the weather and the phases of the moon. He hence, after a

full examination, comes to the conclusion that "_the condition of the

weather as to change, or in any other respect, has, as a matter of fact,

no correspondence whatever with the lunar phases_."

[36] See Lectures on Science and Art, vol. i., p. 315.

In another lecture on the moon and the weather, the following decisive

opinion is expressed: "From all that has been stated, it follows then,

conclusively, that the popular notions concerning the influence of the

lunar phases on the weather have no foundation in the theory, and no

correspondence with observed facts."[37]

[37] Ibid., p. 419-420.

TIME FOR FELLING TIMBER.--In another lecture on lunar influences, Dr.

Lardner observes that "there is an opinion generally entertained that

timber should be felled only during the decline of the moon; for if it

be cut down during its increase, it will not be of a good or durable

quality. This impression prevails in various countries. It is acted upon

in England, and is made the ground of legislation in France. _The forest

laws of the latter country interdict the cutting of timber during the

increase of the moon._ In the extensive forests of Germany, the same

opinion is entertained and acted upon, with the most undoubting

confidence in its truth. Sauer, a superintendent of some of these

districts, assigns what he believes to be its physical cause. According

to him, the increase of the moon causes the sap to ascend in the timber,

and, on the other hand, the decrease of the moon causes it to descend.

If the timber, therefore, be cut during the decrease of the moon, it

will be cut in a dry state, the sap having retired, and the wood,

therefore, will be compact, solid, and durable. But if it be cut during

the increase of the moon, it will be felled with the sap in it, and will

therefore be more spongy, more easily attacked by worms, more difficult

to season, and more readily split and warped by changes of temperature.

"Admitting for a moment the reality of this supposition concerning the

motion of the sap, it would follow that the proper time for felling the

timber would be _the new moon_, that being the epoch at which the

descent of the sap would have been made, and the ascent not yet

commenced. But can there be imagined, in the whole range of natural

science, a physical relation more extraordinary and unaccountable than

this supposed correspondence between the movement of the sap and the

phases of the moon? Assuredly theory affords not the slightest

countenance to such a supposition; but let us inquire as to the fact

whether it be really the case that the quality of timber depends upon

the state of the moon at the time it is felled.

"M. Duhamel Monceau, a celebrated French agriculturist, has made direct

and positive experiments for the purpose of testing this question, and

has clearly and conclusively shown that the qualities of timber felled

in different parts of the lunar month are the same. M. Duhamel felled a

great many trees of the same age, growing from the same soil, and

exposed to the same aspect, and never found any difference in the

quality of the timber, when he compared those which were felled in the

decline of the moon with those which were felled during its increase: in

general, they have afforded timber of the same quality. He adds,

however, that by a circumstance which was doubtless fortuitous, a slight

difference was manifested in favor of timber which had been felled

between the new and full moon, _contrary to popular opinion_."

SUPPOSED LUNAR INFLUENCES.--It is an aphorism received by all gardeners

and agriculturists in Europe, remarks the same author, that vegetables,

plants, and trees, which are expected to flourish and grow with vigor,

should be planted, grafted, and pruned during the increase of the moon.

This opinion, however, he thinks is altogether erroneous; for the

experiments and observations of several French agriculturists have

clearly established the fact that the increase or decrease of the moon

has no appreciable influence on the phenomena of vegetation.

This erroneous prejudice prevails also on the American continent. A

French author states that, in Brazil, cultivators plant during the

_decline_ of the moon all vegetables whose _roots_ are used as food, and

that, on the contrary, they plant during the _increasing_ moon the

sugar-cane, maize, rice, beans, etc., and those which bear the food upon

their _stocks_ and _branches_. Experiments, however, were made and

reported by M. de Chauvalon, at Martinique, on vegetables of both

kinds, planted at different times in the lunar month, and no

appreciable difference in their qualities was discovered.

There are some traces of a principle adopted by the South American

agronomes (farmers), according to which they treat the two classes of

plants distinguished by the production of fruit on their roots or on

their branches differently; but there are none in the European

aphorisms. The directions of Pliny are still more specific: he

prescribes the time of the full moon for sowing beans, and that of the

new moon for lentils. "Truly," says M. Arago, "we have need of a robust

faith to admit, without proof, that the moon, at the distance of two

hundred and forty thousand miles, shall, in one position, act

advantageously upon the vegetation of _beans_, and that in the opposite

position, and at the same distance, she shall be propitious to

_lentils_."

Dr. Lardner gives numerous and extended illustrations of the supposed

influence of the moon on the growth of grain, on wine-making,[38] on the

color of the complexion, on putrefaction, on the size of shell-fish, on

the quantity of marrow in the bones of animals, on the number of births,

on mental derangement, and other human maladies, etc., etc.

[38] On this subject the prevailing opinions in different countries

disagree, as they do also on some of the others.

The influence on the phenomena of human maladies imputed to the moon is

very ancient. Hippocrates had so strong a faith in the influence of

celestial objects upon animated beings, that he expressly recommends no

physician to be trusted who is ignorant of astronomy. Galen, following

Hippocrates, maintained the same opinion, especially of the influence of

the moon. The critical days, or _crises_, were the seventh, fourteenth,

and twenty-first of the disease, corresponding to the intervals between

the moon's principal phases. While the doctrine of alchemists

prevailed, the human body was considered as a microcosm, or an epitome

of the universe, the heart representing the sun, and the brain the moon.

The planets had each his proper influence: Jupiter presided over the

lungs, Saturn over the spleen, Venus over the kidneys, and Mercury over

the organs of generation. The term _lunacy_, which still designates

unsoundness of mind, is a relic of these grotesque notions, and is

defined by Dr. Webster as "a species of insanity or madness, formerly

supposed to be influenced by the moon, or periodical in the month." But

even this term may now be said, in some degree, to be banished from the

nomenclature of medicine; it has, however, taken refuge in that

receptacle of all antiquated absurdities of phraseology--the

law--lunatic being still the term for the subject who is incapable of

managing his own affairs.

Sanctorius, whose name is celebrated in physics for the invention of the

thermometer, held it as a principle that a healthy man gained two

pounds' weight at the beginning of every lunar month, which he lost

toward its completion. This opinion appears to have been founded on

experiments made upon himself, and affords another instance of a

fortuitous coincidence hastily generalized.

For all the progress that has been made in this country toward the

removal from the popular mind of the numerous corrupting and debasing

absurdities which have hitherto enslaved it, we are indebted to our

enlightened and chastened systems of popular education; and to these,

and to these only, may we confidently look for entire freedom from the

thraldom.

EDUCATION INCREASES THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR.

Education has a power of ministering to our personal and material

wants beyond all other agencies, whether excellence of climate,

spontaneity of production, mineral resources, or mines of silver and

gold. Every wise parent, every wise community, desiring the

prosperity of its children even in the most worldly sense, will

spare no pains in giving them a generous education.--HORACE MANN.

The best educated are always the best paid.--_Foreign Report._

The desirableness of education is manifest, view it in what light we

may, and whether as affecting individuals or communities. We have

already seen that education, and that alone, will dissipate the evils of

ignorance. We now propose to discuss the equally tenable proposition

that education increases the productiveness of labor.

That knowledge is power has become a proverb. If it be asked why the

labor of a man is more valuable than the same amount of physical effort

put forth by a brute, the ready answer is, It is because man combines

_intelligence_ with his labor. A single yoke of oxen will do more in one

day at plowing than forty men; yet the oxen may be had for fifty cents a

day, while each of the men can earn a dollar. Physical exertion in this

case, combined with ordinary skill, is eighty times more valuable than

the same amount of brute force. The strength of the ox is of no account

without some one to guide and apply it, while the power of man is guided

by intelligence within.

In proportion as man's intelligence increases is his labor more

valuable. A small compensation is the reward of mere physical power,

while skill, combined with a moderate amount of strength, commands high

wages. The labor of an ignorant man is scarcely more valuable than the

same amount of brute force; but the services of an intelligent,

skillful person are a hundred fold more productive. I will pause and

illustrate, for I wish to have every person who arises from the perusal

of these pages do so with the fullest conviction that mental culture is

of the highest importance even in the ordinary departments of human

industry. It is, indeed, hardly less important for the man of business,

the farmer, or the mechanic, than for statesmen, legislators, and

members of the so-called learned professions.

An intelligent farmer of my acquaintance having a piece of greensward to

break up, and having three work-horses, determined to employ them all.

He hence, possessing some mechanical skill, himself constructed a

three-horse whipple-tree, by means of which he advantageously combined

the strength of his horses. A less intelligent neighbor, pleased with

the novel appearance of three horses working abreast, resolved to try

the experiment himself. But not possessing the skill requisite to

construct such a whipple-tree, he waited till his better-informed and

more expert neighbor had got through with his, and then, borrowing it,

tried the experiment with his own team. Early one morning, and full of

expectation, aided by his two sons and a hired man, he harnessed his

three horses to the plow. But one of them, for the first time, refused

to draw. After several fruitless attempts to make the team work as first

harnessed, the relative position of the horses was changed, when, lo!

although _this_ horse would draw as formerly, one of the others would

not. By and by another change was made, and the third horse, in turn,

refused to draw. The farmer could not understand it, nor his sons, nor

his hired man. His three horses, for the first time, were each fickle in

turn. And, what was most surprising, they would all work in either of

two positions, but in the third none of them would draw. The honest

farmer thought the age of witchcraft had not yet passed. At the

conclusion of the forenoon he gave up the undertaking in disgust, and,

carrying the whipple-tree home, told the story of his unsuccessful and

vexatious experiment.

"And how did you harness the horses to the whipple-tree?" inquired the

more intelligent farmer. "Why, one at the short end, and two at the long

end, where there is the most room for them, to be sure!" was the frank

reply.

The power at the short end, I need not say, should be twice that at the

long end; whereas he had it reversed. One horse drew against two with a

double purchase. He then would have to draw twice as much as both of

them, or four times as much as one of them. The fickleness of the

horses, then, instead of being the result of _witchcraft_, as he was

inclined to believe, was chargeable solely to the _ignorance_ of their

hardly more intelligent master. A knowledge of the first principles of

mechanics, or, in the absence of this, an ordinary degree of active,

available common sense, would teach the proper use of such a

whipple-tree. For want of this knowledge, the farmer suffered much

chagrin, lost the time of four men, and did great injury to his team.

After mentioning this circumstance on a certain occasion, a gentleman

present gave a parallel case, that occurred under his immediate

observation. His neighbor had a yoke of oxen, one of which was large,

strong, and beautiful. One day, as the neighbor was passing the

residence of the gentleman, the latter remarked to him, "You have one

very fine-looking ox." "Yes," replied the neighbor, with apparent

satisfaction, "and a bonny fellow he is too. He can carry the _long end

of the yoke, and grow fat under it_." Here, again, the weaker ox had to

tax his strength doubly on account of the advantage which the ignorance

of his kind master had unintentionally given to his superior

yoke-fellow.

A farmer, or laborer of any kind, who possesses a knowledge of the

merest elements of science, and is accustomed to think and investigate,

can not only work more advantageously with his team, but he can do more

work himself, and do it easier too, than his neighbor of superior

physical strength, though of inferior mental capacity. The correctness

of this statement may be satisfactorily proved and amply illustrated in

loading timber, in moving buildings, in plowing, and in almost every

kind of work done on a farm or among men, either on land or at sea. The

ignorant man will spend more time in running after help to do a supposed

difficult job, than it will require for a skillful one to do it alone.

This is true in carpentry, and in all of the mechanic arts. Increase the

practical and available education of the laborer, and you enable him to

do more work, and better work too, than his less informed associate. The

following is a striking illustration.

A practical teacher employed some mechanics to build him a barn. The day

after the frame was raised, the teacher discovered that it needed to be

turned a few inches upon its foundation, to range properly with other

buildings. While the mechanics went in several directions to procure

what they regarded as necessary help, the teacher, who was familiar with

the various combinations of the lever, effected the work alone, and

before their return! Other equally striking illustrations might be

cited.

But education increases the productiveness of labor in a wider and more

extended sense. By its omnipotent influence, man is enabled to lay the

elements under tribute. The water and the wind, by its mysterious

power, are made to propel his machinery for various purposes. The utmost

skill of the untutored savage enables him to construct a rude canoe

which two can carry upon their shoulders by land, which is barely

capable of plying upon our rivers and coasting our inland seas, and

which can be propelled only by human muscles, but the _educated man_

erects a magnificent vessel, a floating palace, and, spreading his

canvas to the breeze, aided by the mariner's compass, can traverse

unknown seas in safety. To such perfection has he attained in the

science and art of navigation, that he contends successfully with wind

and tide, and makes headway against both, even when he depends upon the

former for his motive power. Yes, education enables man even to tax the

gentle breeze to urge a proud ship, heavily laden, up an inclined plane,

thousands of miles, against the current of a mighty river.

I can not, perhaps, so satisfactorily establish the proposition which I

am now endeavoring to elucidate, nor so well maintain the universality

of its application, as by referring to the writings of the most

indefatigable and successful laborer in the department of popular

education of which our country can boast. I refer to the Hon. Horace

Mann,[39] who, a few years ago, in his official capacity, opened a

correspondence, and availed himself of all opportunities to hold

personal interviews with many of the most practical, sagacious, and

intelligent business men in our country, who for many years had had

large numbers of persons in their employment. His object was to

ascertain the difference in the productive ability, where natural

capacities were equal, between the educated and the uneducated; between

a man or a woman whose mind has been awakened to thought, and supplied

with the rudiments of knowledge by a good common school education, and

one whose faculties have never been developed, or aided in emerging from

their original darkness and torpor by such a privilege. For this purpose

he conferred and corresponded with manufacturers of all kinds--with

machinists, engineers, rail-road contractors, officers in the army,

etc.; classes which have means of determining the effects of education

on individuals equal in their natural abilities that other classes do

not possess.

[39] Late Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Reference

is here especially made to his Fifth Annual Report, bearing date January

1, 1842, from which, with his consent, what follows under this head has

been substantially drawn.

A farmer hiring a laborer for one season who has received a good common

school education, and the ensuing season hiring another who has not

enjoyed this advantage, although he may be personally convinced of the

relative value or profitableness of their services, yet he will rarely

have any exact data or tests to refer to by which he can measure the

superiority of the former over the latter. They do not work side by

side, so that he can institute a comparison between the amounts of labor

they perform. They may cultivate different fields, where the ease of

tillage or the fertility of the soils may be different. They may rear

crops under the influence of different seasons, so that he can not

discriminate between what is referable to the bounty of nature and what

to superiority in judgment or skill.

Similar difficulties exist in estimating the amount and value of female

labor in the household. And as to the mechanic also--the carpenter, the

mason, the blacksmith, the tool-maker of any kind--there are a thousand

circumstances, which we call accidental, that mingle their influence in

giving quality and durability to their work, and prevent us from making

a precise estimate of the relative value of any two men's handicraft.

Individual differences, too, in regard to a single article or a single

days' work, may be too minute to be noticed or appreciated, while the

aggregate of these differences at the end of a few years may make all

the difference between a poor man and a rich one. No observing man can

have failed to notice the difference between two workmen, one of whom,

to use a proverbial expression, always "hits the nail on the head,"

while the other loses half his strength and destroys half his nails by

the awkwardness of his blows; but perhaps few men have thought of the

difference in the results of two such men's labor at the end of twenty

years.

But when hundreds of men or women work side by side in the same factory,

at the same machinery, in making the same fabrics, and, by a fixed rule

of the establishment, labor the same number of hours each day; and when,

also, the products of each operative can be counted in number, weighed

by the pound, or measured by the yard or cubic foot, then it is

perfectly practicable to determine, with arithmetical exactness, the

productions of one individual and class as compared with those of

another individual and class.

So, where there are different kinds of labor, some simple, others

complicated, and of course requiring different degrees of intelligence

and skill, it is easy to observe what class of persons rise from a lower

to a higher grade of employment.

This, too, is not to be forgotten, that in a manufacturing or mechanical

establishment, or among a set of hands engaged in filling up a valley or

cutting down a hill, where scores of people are working together, the

absurd and adventitious distinctions of society do not intrude. The

capitalist and his agents are looking for the greatest amount of labor

or the largest income in money from their investments, and they do not

promote a dunce to a station where he will destroy raw material or

slacken industry because of his name, or birth, or family connections.

The obscurest and humblest person has a fair field for competition. That

he proves himself capable of earning more money for his employers is a

testimonial better than a diploma from all the colleges.

Now many of the most intelligent and valuable men in the community, in

compliance with Mr. Mann's request, examined their books for a series of

years, and ascertained both the quality and the amount of work performed

by persons in their employment, and the result of the investigation is a

most astonishing superiority in productive power on the part of the

educated over the uneducated laborer. The hand is found to be another

hand when guided by an intelligent mind. Processes are performed not

only more rapidly, but better, when faculties which have been exercised

in early life furnish their assistance. Individuals who, without the aid

of knowledge, would have been condemned to perpetual inferiority of

condition, and subjected to all the evils of want and poverty, rise to

competence and independence by the uplifting power of education. In

great establishments, and among large bodies of laboring men, where all

services are rated according to their pecuniary value; where there are

no extrinsic circumstances to bind a man down to a fixed position after

he has shown a capacity to rise above it; where, indeed, men pass by

each other, ascending or descending in their grades of labor just as

easily and certainly as particles of water of different degrees of

temperature glide by each other--under such circumstances it is found,

as an almost invariable fact, other things being equal, that those who

have been blessed with a good common school education rise to a higher

and a higher point in the kinds of labor performed, and also in the rate

of wages received, while the ignorant sink like dregs, and are always

found at the bottom.

James K. Mills, Esq., of Boston, who has been connected with a house

that has had for the last ten years the principal direction of

cotton-mills, machine shops, and calico-printing works, in which are

constantly employed about three thousand persons, and whose opinions of

the effects of a common school education upon a manufacturing population

are the result of personal observation and inquiries, and are confined

to the testimony of the overseers and agents who are brought into

immediate contact with the operatives, expresses the conviction that the

rudiments of a common school education are essential to the attainment

of skill and expertness as laborers, or to consideration and respect in

the civil and social relations of life; that very few who have not

enjoyed the advantages of a common school education ever rise above the

lowest class of operatives, and that the labor of this class, when it is

employed in manufacturing operations which require even a very moderate

degree of manual or mental dexterity, is unproductive; that a large

majority of the overseers and others employed in situations which

require a high degree of skill in particular branches--which oftentimes

require a good general knowledge of business, and _always_ an

unexceptionable moral character--have made their way up from the

condition of common laborers, with no other advantage over a large

proportion of those they have left behind than that derived from a

better education.

A statement made from the books of one of the manufacturing companies

will show the relative number of the two classes, and the earnings of

each; and this mill, we are assured, may be taken as a fair index of all

the others. The average number of operatives employed for the last three

years is twelve hundred. Of this number there are forty-five unable to

write their names, or about three and three fourths per cent. The

average of women's wages, in the departments requiring the most skill,

is two dollars and fifty cents per week, exclusive of board. The average

wages of the lowest departments is one dollar and twenty-five cents per

week.

Of the forty-five who are unable to write, twenty-nine, or about two

thirds, are employed in the lowest department. The difference between

the wages earned by the forty-five and the average wages of an equal

number of the better-educated class is about twenty-seven per cent. in

favor of the latter. The difference between the wages earned by

twenty-nine of the lowest class and the same number in the higher is

sixty-six per cent. Of seventeen persons filling the most responsible

stations in the mills, ten have grown up in the establishment from

common laborers or apprentices.

This statement does not include an importation of sixty-three persons

from Manchester, in England, in 1839. Among these persons there was

scarcely one who could read or write; and although a part of them had

been accustomed to work in cotton-mills, yet, either from incapacity or

idleness, they were unable to earn sufficient to pay for their

subsistence, and at the expiration of a few weeks not more than half a

dozen remained in the employment of the company.

In some of the print-works a large proportion of the operatives are

foreigners. Those who are employed in the branches which require a

considerable degree of skill are as well educated as our people in

similar situations. But the common laborers, as a class, are without any

education, and their average earnings are about two thirds only of those

of _our_ lowest classes, although the prices paid to each are the same

for the same amount of work.

Among the men and boys employed in the machine shops, the want of

education is quite rare. Mr. Mills does not know an instance of a person

so employed who is unable to read and write; and many have a good common

school education. To this, he thinks, may be attributed the fact that a

large proportion of persons who fill the higher and more responsible

situations come from this class of workmen. From these statements the

reader will be able to form some estimate, in dollars and cents, at

least, of the advantages of even a little education to the operative;

and _there is not the least doubt_, says the same authority, that the

_employer is equally benefited_. He has the security for his property

that intelligence, good morals, and a just appreciation of the

regulations of his establishment always afford. His machinery and mills,

which constitute a large part of his capital, are in the hands of

persons who, by their skill, are enabled to use them to their utmost

capacity, and to prevent any unnecessary depreciation.

Each operative in a cotton-mill, according to the estimate of Mr. Mills,

may be supposed to represent from one thousand to twelve hundred dollars

of the capital invested in the mill and its machinery. It is only from

the most diligent and economical use of this capital that the proprietor

can expect a profit. A fraction less than one half of the cost of

manufacturing common cotton goods when a mill is in full operation, is

made up of charges which are permanent. If the product is reduced in

the ratio of the capacity of the two classes of operatives mentioned in

this statement, it will be seen that the cost will be increased in a

compound ratio. Mr. Mills expresses the opinion "that the best

cotton-mill in New England, with such operatives only as the forty-five

mentioned above, who are unable to write their names, would never yield

the proprietor a profit; that the machinery would be soon worn out, and

he would be left, in a short time, with a population no better than that

which is represented by the importation from England. I can not imagine

any situation in life," he continues, "where the want of a common school

education would be more severely felt, or be attended with worse

consequences, than in manufacturing villages; nor, on the other hand, is

there any where such advantages can be improved with greater benefit to

all parties. There is more excitement and activity in the minds of

people living in masses, and if this expends itself in any of the

thousand vicious indulgences with which they are sure to be tempted, the

road to destruction is traveled over with a speed exactly corresponding

to the power employed."

H. Bartlett, Esq., of Lowell, who has been engaged ten years in

manufacturing, and has had the constant charge of from four hundred to

nine hundred persons during that time, has come in contact with a very

great variety of character and disposition, and has seen mind applied to

production in the mechanic and manufacturing arts possessing different

degrees of intelligence, from gross ignorance to a high degree of

cultivation, and he has no hesitation in affirming that he finds the

best educated to be the most profitable help. _Even those females who

merely tend machinery give a result somewhat in proportion to the

advantages enjoyed in early life for education_, those who have a good

common school education giving, as a class, invariably a better

production than those brought up in ignorance.

In regard to the domestic and social habits of persons in his employ,

the same gentleman adds, "I have never considered mere knowledge,

valuable as it is to the laborer, as the only advantage derived from a

good common school education. I have uniformly found the better

educated, as a class, possessing a higher and better state of morals,

more orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to

comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations of an establishment.

And in times of agitation, on account of some change in regulations or

wages, I have always looked to the most intelligent, best educated, and

the most moral for support, and have seldom been disappointed; for,

while they are the last to submit to imposition, they _reason_, and if

your requirements are reasonable, they will generally acquiesce, and

exert a salutary influence upon their associates. But the ignorant and

uneducated I have generally found the most turbulent and troublesome,

acting under the influence of excited passion and jealousy.

"The former appear to have an interest in sustaining good order, while

the latter seem more reckless of consequences. And, to my mind, all this

is perfectly natural. The better educated have more and stronger

attachments binding them to the place where they are. They are generally

neater in their persons, dress, and houses; surrounded with more

comforts, with fewer of 'the ills flesh is heir to.' In short, I have

found the educated, as a class, more cheerful and contented, devoting a

portion of their leisure time to reading and intellectual pursuits, more

with their families, and less in scenes of dissipation. The good effect

of all this is seen in the more orderly and comfortable appearance of

the whole household, but nowhere more strikingly than in the children. A

mother who has a good common school education will rarely suffer her

children to grow up in ignorance. As I have said, this class of persons

are more quiet, more orderly, and, I may add, more regular in their

attendance upon public worship, and more punctual in the performance of

all their duties."

Mr. Bartlett thinks it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a

young man, who has not an education equal to a good common school

education, to rise from grade to grade until he should obtain the berth

of an overseer, and that, in making promotions, as a general thing, it

would be unnecessary to make inquiry as to the education of the young

men from whom you would select. Very seldom indeed, he says, would an

uneducated young man rise to "_a better place and better pay_. Young men

who expect to resort to manufacturing establishments for employment, can

not prize too highly a good education. _It will give them standing among

their associates, and be the means of promotion among their employers._"

The final remark of this gentleman, in a lengthy letter, showing the

advantages of education in a pecuniary, social, and moral point of view,

is, that "_those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly

goods are deeply interested in this subject, as one of mere insurance_;

that the most effectual way of making insurance on their property would

be _to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of

common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and

constituting it a police more effectual than peace officers and

prisons_." By so doing he thinks they would bestow a benefaction upon

those who, from the accident of birth or parentage, are subjected to the

privations and temptations of poverty, and would do much to remove the

prejudice and to strengthen the bands of union between the different and

extreme portions of society. He very justly regards it a wise provision

of Providence which connects so intimately, and, as he thinks, so

indissolubly, the greatest good of the many with the highest interest of

the few; or, in other words, which unites into one brotherhood all the

members of the community, and in the existing partnership connects

inseparably the interests of Labor and Capital.[40]

[40] The New York Free School State Convention, held in Syracuse the

10th and 11th of July inst. (1850), _unanimously_ adopted an Address to

the People of the State, written by Horace Greeley, in which the

following passage occurs, inculcating the same sentiment: "Property is

deeply interested in the Education of All. There is no farm, no bank, no

mill, no shop--unless it be a grog-shop--which is not more valuable and

more profitable to its owner if located among a well-educated than if

surrounded by an ignorant population. _Simply as a matter of interest,

we hold it to be the duty of Property to itself to provide Education for

All._"

John Clark, Esq., of Lowell, who has had under his superintendence for

eight years about fifteen hundred persons of both sexes, gives

concurrent testimony. He has found, with very few exceptions, the best

educated among his hands to be the most capable, intelligent, energetic,

industrious, economical, and moral, and that they produce the best work,

and the most of it, with the least injury to the machinery. They are, in

short, in all respects the most useful, profitable, and the safest

operatives; and as a class, they are more thrifty, and more apt to

accumulate property for themselves. "I am very sure," he remarks, "that

neither men of property nor society at large have any thing to fear from

a more general diffusion of knowledge, nor from the extension and

improvement of our system of common schools. On our pay-roll for the

last month are borne the names of twelve hundred and twenty-nine female

operatives, forty of whom receipted for their pay by 'making their

mark.' Twenty-six of these have been employed in job work; that is, they

are paid according to the quantity of work turned off from their

machines. The average pay of these twenty-six falls eighteen and one

half per cent. below the general average of those engaged in the same

departments.

"Again: we have in our mills about one hundred and fifty females who

have at some time been engaged in _teaching schools_. Many of them teach

during the summer months, and work in the mills in winter. The average

wages of these ex-teachers I find to be seventeen and three fourths per

cent. _above the general average of our mills, and about forty per cent.

above the twenty-six who can not write their names_. It may be said they

are generally employed in the higher departments, where the pay is

better. This is true; but this again may be, in most cases, fairly

attributed to their better education, which brings us to the same

result. If I had included in my calculations the remaining fourteen of

the forty, who were mostly sweepers and scrubbers, and who are paid by

the day, the contrast would have been still more striking; but, having

no well-educated females in this department with whom to compare them, I

have omitted them altogether. In arriving at the above results, I have

considered the _net wages_ merely, the price of board being in all cases

the same. I do not consider these results as either extraordinary or

surprising, but as a part only of the legitimate and proper fruits of a

better cultivation, and fuller development of the intellectual and moral

powers."

Mr. Mann gives the entire letters from which I have so freely drawn, and

also introduces into his report extracts from a letter of Jonathan

Crane, Esq., who has been for many years a large rail-road contractor,

and has had several thousand men in his employment. The testimony of

this gentleman is corroborative of that already presented. Testimony

similar to the preceding might be introduced from the proprietors and

superintendents of the principal manufacturing establishments in America

not only, but from every part of the civilized world. Before concluding

this chapter, I shall, for another purpose, refer to statements made by

extensive manufacturers in England and Switzerland.

These are no more than a fair specimen of a mass of facts which Mr. Mann

obtained from the most authentic sources. They seem to prove

incontestably that education is not only a moral renovator, and a

multiplier of intellectual power, but that it is also the most prolific

parent of material riches. It has a right, therefore, not only to be

included in the grand inventory of a nation's resources, but to be

placed at the very head of that inventory. It is not only the most

honest and honorable, but the surest means of amassing property.

Considering education, then, as a producer of wealth, it follows that

the more educated a people are, the more will they abound in all those

conveniences, comforts, and satisfactions which money will buy; and,

other things being equal, _the increase of competency and the decline of

pauperism will be measurable on this scale_.

EDUCATION AND AGRICULTURE.--The healthful and praiseworthy employment of

agriculture requires knowledge for its successful prosecution. In this

department of industry we are in perpetual contact with the forces of

nature. We are constantly dependent upon them for the pecuniary returns

and profits of our investments, and hence the necessity of knowing what

those forces are, and under what circumstances they will operate most

efficiently, and will most bountifully reward our original outlay of

money and time.

Our country yields a great variety of agricultural productions, and this

brings into requisition all that chemical and experimental knowledge

which pertains to the rotation of crops and the enrichment of soils. If

rotation be disregarded, the repeated demands upon the same soil to

produce the same crop will exhaust it of the elements on which that

particular crop will best thrive. If the chemical ingredients and

affinities of the soil are not understood, an attempt may be made to

reenforce it by substances with which it is already surcharged, instead

of renovating it with those of which it has been exhausted by previous

growths. But for these arrangements and adaptations knowledge is the

grand desideratum, and the addition of a new fact to a farmer's mind

will often increase the amount of his harvests more than the addition of

acres to his estate.

Why is it that, if we except Egypt, all the remaining territory of

Africa, containing nearly ten millions of square miles, with a soil most

of which is incomparably more fertile by nature, produces less for the

sustenance of man and beast than England, whose territory is only fifty

thousand square miles? In the latter country, knowledge has been a

substitute for a genial climate and an exuberant soil; while in the

former, it is hardly a figurative expression to say that all the

maternal kindness of nature, powerful and benignant as she is, has been

repulsed by the ignorance of her children. Doubtless industry as well as

knowledge is indispensable to productiveness; but knowledge must precede

industry, or the latter will work to so little effect as to become

discouraged, and to relapse into the slothfulness of savage life. This

is illustrated by the condition of the inhabitants of Lower California,

as described by an intelligent friend of the author, who left this

country a year ago. He says this is a "most beautiful country, with the

finest climate in the world. But its inhabitants, who are principally

Spaniards and Indians, are in a state of semi-barbarism, and

consequently its resources are, to a certain extent, undeveloped. The

land, which is generally level and of the richest quality, is divided

into ranchos or plantations, the largest of which are twenty miles

square, and feed twenty or thirty thousand head of wild cattle, with

horses and mules in proportion. But these are all. The arts are in the

lowest state imaginable. Their houses are mere pens, without pen floors;

their plows are pointed logs; their yokes are straight sticks, which

they tie to the horns of their oxen; and every implement of industry

shows an equal want of ingenuity and enterprise. They are too indolent

to raise much grain, though the soil will yield, I am told, eighty

bushels of wheat to an acre; consequently, wheat is sold to the

immigrants at three dollars per bushel, while the finest beef cattle in

the world bring from eight to ten dollars per head. Butter, cheese, and

even milk, you can not obtain at all, for they are too lazy to tame

their cows. A few Americans, who own large ranchos, have American plows,

and are doing better than the rest. Many ranchos have been abandoned,

and their owners have gone to the mines. This state of things the

energetic Anglo-Saxon will soon change. The immigration for the next few

years will be immense, and the whole community will yield to American

customs. The large ranchos will be cut up into farms, and their products

will supply the wants of a dense population. Property will rapidly

change hands, and it will be easy for the shrewd Yankee to reap the

benefit of the change."

But, without further exposition, it may be remarked generally, that the

spread of intelligence, through the instrumentality of good books, and

the cultivation in our children of the faculties of observing,

comparing, and reasoning, through the medium of good schools, would add

millions to the agricultural products of nearly every state of the

Union, without imposing upon the husbandman an additional hour of labor.

EDUCATION AND THE USEFUL ARTS.--For the successful prosecution among us

of the manufacturing and mechanic arts, if not for their very existence,

there must be not only the exactness of science, but also exactness or

skill in the application of scientific principles throughout the whole

processes, either of constructing machinery, or of transforming raw

materials into finished fabrics. This ability to make exact and skillful

applications of science to an unlimited variety of materials, and

especially to the subtile but most energetic agencies of nature, is one

of the latest attainments of the human mind. It is remarkable that

astronomy, sculpture, painting, poetry, oratory, and even ethical

philosophy, had made great progress thousands of years before the era of

the manufacturing and mechanic arts. This era, indeed, has but just

commenced; and already the abundance, and, what is of far greater

importance, the _universality_ of the personal, domestic, and social

comforts it has created, constitute one of the most important epochs in

the history of civilization.

The cultivation of these arts is conferring a thousand daily

accommodations and pleasures upon the laborer in his cottage, which,

only two or three centuries ago, were luxuries in the palace of the

monarch. Through circumstances incident to the introduction of all

economical improvements, there has hitherto been great inequality in the

distribution of their advantages; but their general tendency is greatly

to ameliorate the condition of the mass of mankind. It has been

estimated that the products of machinery in Great Britain, with a

population of eighteen millions, is equal to the labor of hundreds of

millions of human hands. This vast gain is effected without the conquest

or partitioning of the territory of any neighboring nation, and without

rapine or the confiscation of property already accumulated by others. It

is an absolute creation of wealth--that is, of those articles,

commodities, and improvements which we appraise and set down as of a

certain moneyed value alike in the inventory of a deceased man's estate

and in the grand valuation of a nation's capital. These contributions to

human welfare have been derived from knowledge; from knowing how to

employ those natural agencies which from the beginning of the race had

existed, but had lain dormant or run uselessly away. For mechanical

purposes, what is wind, or water, or the force of steam worth, until the

ingenuity of man comes in, and places the wind-wheel, the water-wheel,

or the piston _between_ these mighty agents and the work he wishes them

to perform? But after the intervention of machinery, how powerful they

become for all purposes of utility! In a word, these great improvements,

which distinguish our age from all preceding ages, have been obtained

from Nature by addressing her in the language of Science and Art, the

only language she understands, yet one of such all-pervading efficacy

that she never refuses to comply to the letter with all petitions for

wealth or physical power, if they are preferred to her in that dialect.

Now it is easy to show, from reasoning, from history, and from

experience, that an early awakening of the mind is a prerequisite to

success in the useful arts. But it must be an awakening to thought, not

to feeling merely. In the first place, a clearness of perception must be

acquired, or the power of taking a correct mental transcript, copy, or

image of whatever is seen This, however, though indispensable, is by no

means sufficient.

_The talent of improving upon the labors of others_ requires not only

the capability of receiving an exact mental copy or imprint of all the

objects of sense or reasoning; it also requires the power of reviving or

reproducing at will all the impressions or ideas before obtained, and

the power of changing their collocations, of re-arranging them into new

forms, and of adding something to or removing something from the

original perceptions, in order to make a more perfect plan or model. If

a ship-wright, for instance, would improve upon all existing specimens

of naval architecture, he would first examine as great a number of ships

as possible; this done, he would revive the image which each had

imprinted upon his mind, and, with all the fleets which he had inspected

present to his imagination, he would compare each individual vessel with

all others, make a selection of one part from one, and of another part

from another, apply his own knowledge of the laws of moving and of

resisting forces to all, and thus create, in his own mind, the complex

idea or model of a ship more perfect than any of those he had seen.

_Now every recitation in a school, if rightly conducted, is a step

toward the attainment of this wonderful power._ With a course of studies

judiciously arranged and diligently pursued through the years of

minority, all the great phenomena of external nature, and the most

important productions in all the useful arts, together with the

principles on which they are evolved or fashioned, would be successively

brought before the understanding of the pupil. He would thus become

familiar with the substances of the material world, and with their

manifold properties and uses; and he would learn the laws,

comparatively few, by which results infinitely diversified are produced.

When such a student goes out into life, he carries, as it were, a plan

or model of the world in his own mind. He can not, therefore, pass,

either blindly or with the stupid gaze of the brute creation, by the

great objects and processes of nature; but he has an intelligent

discernment of their several existences and relations, and their

adaptation to the uses of mankind. Neither can he fasten his eye upon

any workmanship or contrivance of man without asking two questions:

first, How is it? and, secondly, How can it be improved?