Hence it is that all the processes of nature and the contrivances of art

are so many lessons or communications to an instructed man; but an

uninstructed one walks in the midst of them like a blind man among

colors, or a deaf man among sounds. The Romans carried their aqueducts

from hill-top to hill-top, on lofty arches erected at immense

expenditure of time and money. One idea--that is, a knowledge of the law

of the equilibrium of fluids; a knowledge of the fact that water in a

tube will rise to the level of the fountain--would have enabled a

_single individual_ to do with ease what, _without that knowledge_, it

required the _wealth of an empire to accomplish_.

It is in ways similar to this--that is, by accomplishing greater results

with less means; by creating products at once cheaper, better, and by

more expeditious methods; and by doing a vast variety of things

otherwise impossible--that the cultivation of mind may be truly said to

yield the highest pecuniary requital.

_Intelligence is the great money-maker, not by extortion_, but by

PRODUCTION. There are ten thousand things in every department of life

which, if done in season, can be done in a minute, but which, if not

seasonably done, will require hours, perhaps days or weeks for their

performance. An awakened mind will see and seize the critical juncture;

the perceptions of the sluggish one will come too late, if they come at

all.

A general culture of the faculties, also, gives versatility of talent,

so that, if the customary business of the laborer is superseded by

improvements, he can readily betake himself to another kind of

employment. But an uncultivated mind is like an automaton, which can do

only the thing for which its wheels or springs were made. Brute force

expends itself unproductively. It is ignorant of the manner in which

Nature works, and hence it can not avail itself of her mighty agencies.

Often, indeed, it attempts to oppose Nature. It throws itself across the

track where her resistless car is moving. But knowledge enables its

possessor to employ her agencies in his own service, and he thereby

obtains an amount of power, without fee or reward, which thousands of

slaves could not give.

Every man who consumes a single article in whose production or

transportation the power of steam is used, has it delivered to him

cheaper than he could otherwise have obtained it. Every man who can

avail himself of this power in traveling, can perform the business of

three days in one, and so far add two hundred per cent. to the length of

his life as a business man. What innumerable millions has the invention

of the cotton-gin, by Whitney, added, and will continue to add, to the

wealth of the world! a part of which is already realized, but vastly the

greater part of which is yet to be received, as each successive day

draws for an installment which would exhaust the treasury of a nation.

The instructed and talented man enters the rich domains of Nature not as

an _intruder_, but, as it were, a PROPRIETOR, and makes her riches his

own.

Why is it that, so far as the United States are concerned, four fifths

of all the improvements, inventions, and discoveries in regard to

machinery, to agricultural implements, to superior models in

ship-building, and to the manufacture of those refined instruments on

which accuracy in scientific observations depends, have originated in

New England? I believe no adequate reason can be assigned but the early

awakening and training of the power of thought in her children.

Improvements, inventions, and discoveries have been made in other states

of the Union to an extent commensurate with the progress they have made

in perfecting their systems of public instruction, and these

improvements will ever keep pace with the attentions which a people

bestow upon their common schools.

Mr. Mann remarks that, in conversing with a gentleman who had possessed

most extensive opportunities for acquaintance with men of different

countries and of all degrees of intellectual development, he observed

that he could employ a common immigrant or a slave, and, if he chose,

could direct him to shovel a heap of sand from one spot to another, and

then back into its former place, and so to and fro through the day; but,

added he, neither love nor money would prevail on a New Englander to

prosecute a piece of work of which he did not see the utility.

There is scarcely any kind of labor, however simple, pertaining to the

farm, to the work-shop, or to domestic employments, and whether

performed by male or female, which can be so well done without knowledge

in the workman or domestic as with it. It is impossible for an overseer

or employer at all times to supply mind to the laborer. In giving

directions for the shortest series or train of operations, something

will be omitted or misunderstood; and without intelligence in the

workman, the omission or mistake will be repeated in the execution.

It is a fact of universal notoriety, that the manufacturing population

of England, as a class, work for half, or less than half the wages of

our own. The cost of machinery there, also, is about half as much as the

cost of the same articles with us; while our capital, when loaned,

produces nearly double the rate of English interest; yet against these

grand adverse circumstances our manufacturers, with a small per centage

of tariff, successfully compete with English capitalists in many

branches of manufacturing business. No explanation can be given of this

extraordinary fact which does not take into the account the difference

of education between the operatives in the two countries.

One of our most careful and successful manufacturers remarks that, on

substituting in one of his cotton-mills a better for a poorer educated

class of operatives, he was enabled to add twelve or fifteen per cent.

to the speed of his machinery, without any increase of damage or danger

from the acceleration. How direct and demonstrative the bearing which

facts like this have upon the wisdom of our laws respecting the

education of children in manufacturing establishments.[41]

[41] In Connecticut the statutes provide "that no child under the age

of fifteen years shall be employed to labor in any manufacturing

establishment, or in any other business in the state, unless such child

shall have attended some public or private day school where instruction

is given by a teacher qualified to instruct in orthography, reading,

writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, at least three

months of the twelve months next preceding any and every year in which

such child shall be so employed. And the owner, agent, or superintendent

of any manufacturing establishment who shall employ any child in such

establishment contrary to the provisions of this act, shall forfeit and

pay for each offense a penalty of twenty-five dollars to the treasurer

of the state." In Massachusetts the forfeiture is fifty dollars. Similar

provisions exist in other American, and in several European states.

The number of females in the State of Massachusetts engaged in the

various manufactures of cotton, straw-platting, etc., has been estimated

at forty thousand, and the annual value of their labor at one hundred

dollars each on an average, or four millions of dollars for the whole.

From the facts stated in the letters of Messrs. Mills and Clark above

cited, it appears there is a difference of not less than fifty per cent.

between the earnings of the least educated and of the best educated

operatives--between those who make their marks instead of writing their

names, and those who have been acceptably employed in school-keeping.

Now suppose the whole forty thousand females engaged in the various

kinds of manufactures in that commonwealth to be degraded to the level

of the lowest class, it would follow that their aggregate earnings would

fall at once to two millions of dollars. But, on the other hand, suppose

them all to be elevated by mental cultivation to the rank of the

highest, and their earnings would rise to the sum of six millions of

dollars annually.

There can be no doubt but that education, or the want of it, affects the

pecuniary value of female labor in the ordinary domestic employments of

the sex not less than in manufactures. If, then, the females of the

thirty states of the Union be estimated at eight millions--and the

number sustaining the relations of daughters, wives, and mothers must

exceed the supposition--the effect of giving them all an education equal

to the best would at once raise their earnings, annually, two hundred

millions of dollars! But this is the lowest sense in which we can

estimate the value of education, even in the sterner sex. This sum, vast

as it may seem, is as dross to gold when compared with the refining and

elevating influence which eight millions of educated females would exert

upon the domestic and social institutions of our country, in uplifting

our national character and improving the condition of the race.

Not more than thirty years ago it was uncommon for a glazier's

apprentice, even after having served an apprenticeship of seven years,

to be able to cut glass with a diamond without spending much time and

destroying much of the glass upon which he worked. But the invention of

a simple tool has put it into the power of the merest tyro in the trade

to cut glass with facility, and without loss. A man who had a _mind_, as

well as _fingers_, observed that there was one direction in which the

diamond was almost incapable of abrasion or wearing by use. The tool not

only steadies the diamond, but fastens it in that direction.

The operation of tanning leather consists in exposing a hide to the

action of a chemical ingredient, called tannin, for a length of time

sufficient to allow every particle of the hide to become saturated with

the solution. In making the best leather, the hides used to lay in the

pit for six, twelve, or eighteen months, and sometimes for two years, the

tanner being obliged to wait all this time for a return of his capital.

By the modern process, the hides are placed in a close pit, with a

solution of the tannin matter, and the air being exhausted, the liquid

penetrates through every pore and fiber of the skin, and the whole

process is completed in a few days.

The bleaching of cloth, which used to be effected in the open air, and

in exposed situations where temptation to theft was offered, and in

England hundreds and probably thousands of men have yielded and

forfeited their lives, is now performed in an unexposed situation, and

in a manner so expeditious, that cloth is bleached as much more rapidly

than it formerly was as hides are tanned.

It is stated by Lord Brougham, in his beautiful Discourse on the

Advantages of Science, that the inventor of the new mode of refining

sugar made more money in a shorter time, and with less risk and trouble,

than perhaps was ever realized from any previous invention.

Intelligence also _prevents loss_ as well as _makes profits_. How much

time and money have been squandered in repeated attempts to invent

machinery, after a principle had been once tested and had failed through

some defect inherent and natural, and therefore insuperable! Within

thirty years not less than five patents have been taken out, in England

and the United States, for a certain construction of paddle-wheels for a

steamboat, which construction was tested and condemned as early as

1810.[42] A case once came within my own knowledge, says Mr. Mann, of a

person who spent a fortune in mining for coal, when a work on geology,

which would have cost but a dollar, and might have been read in a week,

would have informed him that the stratum where he began to excavate

belonged to a formation lower down in the natural series than coal ever

is, or, according to the constitution of things, ever can be found. He

therefore worked into a stratum which must have been formed before a

particle of coal, or even a tree, or a vegetable existed on the planet.

Numerous similar and equally striking illustrations might be cited, but

this is not necessary.

[42] This statement was made eight years ago. More such patents may have

been taken out within this time.

These are a few specimens, on familiar subjects, taken almost at random,

for the purpose of showing the inherent superiority of any association

or community, whether small or great, where _mind_ is a member of the

partnership. What is true of the above-mentioned cases is true of the

whole circle of those arts by which human life is sustained and human

existence comforted, elevated, and embellished. Mind has been the

improver, for matter can not improve itself, and improvement has

advanced in proportion to the number and culture of the minds excited to

activity and applied to the work.

_Similar advancements have been effected throughout the whole compass of

human labor and research;_ in the arts of Transportation and Locomotion,

from the employment of the sheep and the goat as beasts of burden, to

the steam-engine and the rail-road car; in the art of Navigation, from

the canoe clinging timidly to the shore, to steam-ships which boldly

traverse the ocean; in Hydraulics, from carrying water by hand in a

vessel or in horizontal aqueducts, to those vast conduits which supply

the demands of a city, and to steam fire-engines which throw a column of

water to the top of the loftiest buildings; in the arts of Spinning and

Rope-making, from the hand distaff to the spinning-frame, and to the

machine which makes cordage or cables of any length, in a space ten feet

square; in Horology or Time-keeping, from the sun-dial and the

water-clock to the watch, and to the chronometer, by which the mariner

is assisted in measuring his longitude, and in saving property and life;

in the extraction, forging, and tempering of Iron and other ores having

malleability to be wrought into all forms and used for all purposes, and

supplying, instead of the stone hatchet or the fish-shell of the savage,

an almost infinite variety of instruments, which have sharpness for

cutting or solidity for striking; in the art of Vitrification or

Glass-making, giving not only a multitude of commodious and ornamental

utensils for the household, but substituting the window for the

unsightly orifice or open casement, and winnowing light and warmth from

the outward and the cold atmosphere; in the arts of Induration by Heat,

from bricks dried in the sun to those which withstand the corrosion of

our climate for centuries or resist the intensity of the furnace; in the

arts of Illumination, from the torch cut from the fir or pine tree to

the brilliant gas-light which gives almost a solar splendor to the

nocturnal darkness of our cities; in the arts of Heating and

Ventilation, which at once supply warmth for comfort and pure air for

health; in the art of Building, from the hollowed trunk of a tree or the

roof-shaped cabin, to those commodious and lightsome dwellings which

betoken the taste and competence of our villages and cities; in the art

of Copying or Printing, from the toilsome process of hand-copying, where

the transcription of a single book was the labor of months or years, and

sometimes almost of a life, to the power printing-press, which throws

off sixty printed sheets in a minute; in the art of Paper-making, from

the preparation of the inner bark of a tree, cleft off and dried at

immense labor, to machinery from which there jets out an unbroken stream

of paper with the velocity and continuousness of a current of water; in

the art of Painting, from the use of the crayon, and artificial colors

imperfectly blended, requiring whole days to present an incomplete

picture, to the production, as by enchantment, of perfect likenesses in

nature's own penciling, executed in a few seconds; in the art of

Telegraphing, from communicating information by signs which may be seen

from one station to another, to conveying intelligence to any given

distance with the velocity of lightning; and, in addition to all these,

in the arts of Moulding and Casting, of Designing and Engraving, of

Preserving materials and of Changing their color, of Dividing and

Uniting them, etc., etc., an ample catalogue, whose very names and

processes would fill volumes.

Now, for the perfecting of all these operations, from the tedious and

bungling process to the rapid and elegant; for the change of an almost

infinite variety of crude and worthless materials into useful and

beautiful fabrics, _mind_ has been the agent. Succeeding generations

have outstripped their predecessors just in proportion to the

superiority of their mental cultivation. When we compare different

people or different generations with each other, the diversity is so

great that all must behold it. But there is the same kind of difference

between contemporaries, fellow-townsmen, and fellow-laborers. Though the

uninstructed man works side by side with the intelligent, yet the mental

difference between them places them in the same relation to each other

that a _past age_ bears to the _present_. If the ignorant man knows no

more respecting any particular art or branch of business than was

generally known during the last century, _he belongs to the last

century_, and he must consent to be outstripped by those who have the

light and knowledge of the present. Though they are engaged in the same

kind of work, though they are supplied with the same tools or implements

for carrying it on, yet, so long as one has only an _arm_, but the other

has an arm and a MIND, their products will come out stamped and labeled

all over with marks of contrast; inferiority and superiority, both as to

quantity and quality, will be legibly written on their respective

labors.

It is related by travelers among savage tribes that when, by the aid of

an ingeniously devised instrument or apparatus, they have performed some

skillful manual operation, the savages have purloined from them the

instrument they had used, supposing there was some magic in the

apparatus itself, by which the seeming miracle had been performed; but,

as they could not steal _the art of the operator_ with the instrument

which he employed, the theft was fruitless. Any person who expects to

effect with less education what another is enabled to do with more,

ought not to smile at the delusion of the savage or the simplicity of

his reasoning.

On a cursory inspection of the great works of art--the steam-engine, the

printing-press, the power-loom, the mill, the iron foundery, the ship,

the telescope, etc., etc.--we are apt to look upon them as having sprung

into sudden existence, and reached their present state of perfection by

one, or, at most, by a few mighty efforts of creative genius. We do not

reflect that they have required the lapse of centuries and the

successive application of thousands of minds for the attainment of their

present excellence; that they have advanced from a less to a more

perfect form by steps and gradations almost as imperceptible as the

growth by which an infant expands to the stature of a man; and that, as

later discoverers and inventors had first to go over the ground of their

predecessors, so must future discoverers and inventors first master the

attainments of the present age before they will be prepared to make

those new achievements which are to carry still further onward the

stupendous work of improvement.

EDUCATION DIMINISHES PAUPERISM AND CRIME.

Education is to be regarded as one of the most important means of

eradicating the germs of pauperism from the rising generation, and

of securing in the minds and in the morals of the people the best

protection for the institutions of society.--DR. JAMES PHILLIPS KAY,

_Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner, and Secretary to the Committee of

Council on Education_.[43]

The different countries of the world, if arranged according to the

state of education in them, will be found to be arranged also

according to WEALTH, MORALS, and GENERAL HAPPINESS; at the same

time, THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE, AND THE EXTENT OF CRIME AND

VIOLENCE AMONG THEM, FOLLOW A LIKE ORDER.--NATIONAL EDUCATION, _by

Fred. Hill, London_.

That education increases the productiveness of labor has been already

conclusively established. It has also been incidentally shown that mere

knowledge, valuable as it is to the laborer, is not the only advantage

derived from a good common school education, but that the better

educated, as a class, possess a higher and better state of morals, and

are more orderly and respectful in their deportment than the

uninstructed; and that for those who possess the greatest share in the

stock of worldly goods, 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 effective than peace

officers or prisons. If, then, _poverty is at once a cause and an effect

of crime_, as is stated by a late writer,[44] who has made an extended

survey of the relative state of instruction and social welfare in the

leading nations of the world, it is directly inferable that education

will, and, from the nature of the case, _must_ act in a compound ratio

in diminishing both pauperism and crime.

[43] Quoted from the Report to the Secretary of State for the Home

Department, on the Training of Pauper Children, London, 1841.

[44] Fred. Hill, author of National Education, whose testimony is quoted

at the head of this article.

This proposition is not received by a few individuals merely in

comparatively unimportant communities: it is one which is generally

adopted by enlightened practical educators and by liberal-minded

capitalists of both hemispheres. The views of several of our principal

American manufacturers have been already presented. Let us now direct

our attention to the testimony of enlightened and liberal-minded

capitalists residing in some of the transatlantic states.

William Fairbrain, Esq., the sole proprietor of a manufactory in

Manchester, and part owner of another establishment in London, and who

has between eleven and twelve hundred persons in his employ, remarks in

relation to the habits of the educated and uneducated as follows: There

is no doubt that the educated are more sober and less dissipated than

the uneducated. During the hours of recreation, the younger portion of

the educated workmen indulge more in reading and mental pleasures; they

attend more at reading-rooms, and avail themselves of the facilities

afforded by libraries, by scientific lectures, and by lyceums. The older

of the more educated workmen spend their time chiefly with their

families, reading and walking out with them. The time of the uneducated

classes is spent very differently, _and chiefly in the grosser sensual

indulgences_. Mr. Fairbrain has given his own time as president of a

lyceum for the use of the working classes, which furnishes the means of

instruction in arithmetic, mathematics, drawing, and mensuration, and by

lectures. In these institutions liberal provision is very properly made,

not only for the occupation of the leisure hours of the laborers

themselves, and for their intellectual and social improvement, but for

that of their wives and families, in order "to make the home

comfortable, and to minister to the household recreation and amusement:

this is a point of view in which the education of the wives of laboring

men is really of very great importance, that they may be rational

companions for men."[45]

[45] See evidence taken by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., Secretary to the

Poor-Law Commissioners, a quotation from whose report heads this

article.

Albert G. Escher, Esq., one of the firm of Escher, Wyss, and Co., of

Zurich, Switzerland, remarks as follows: We employ from six to eight

hundred men in our machine-making establishment at Zurich: we also

employ about two hundred men in our cotton-mills there, and about five

hundred men in our cotton manufactories in the Tyrol and in Italy. I

have occasionally had the control of from five to six hundred men

engaged in engineering operations as builders, masons, etc., and men of

the class called navigators in England.

After giving a list of the different countries from which his laborers

are drawn, classifying the workmen of various nations "in respect to

such natural intelligence as may be distinguished from any intelligence

imparted by the labors of the schoolmaster," and remarking in relation

to the influence of education upon the value of labor--where his

testimony corroborates that of manufacturers in New England, already

quoted--the same gentleman makes a statement which is applicable to the

subject under consideration.

"_The better educated workmen, we find, are distinguished by superior

moral habits in every respect._ In the first place, they are entirely

sober; they are discreet in their enjoyments, which are of a more

rational and refined kind; they are more refined themselves, and they

have a taste for much better society, which they approach respectfully,

and consequently find much readier admittance to it; they cultivate

music; they read; they enjoy the pleasures of scenery, and make parties

for excursions into the country; they are economical, and their economy

extends beyond their own purse to the stock of their master; they are

consequently honest and trustworthy."

Scotland affords a very striking illustration of the power of education

in diminishing pauperism and crime, and in improving the morals and

increasing the wealth of a country. Indeed, it would be difficult to

find another instance in the history of nations of a country which has

made such rapid progress in the diminution of crime, the increase of

public wealth, and the diffusion of comforts, as Scotland. And this

gratifying change--this remarkable instance of progress in the scale of

being, has been concurrent with increased and increasing attention to

the education of the people.

At the beginning of the last century, Scotland swarmed with gipsies and

other vagabonds, who lived chiefly by stealing, and who often committed

violent robberies and murders. Of these pests to society it was

estimated that there were not less than two hundred thousand. Besides

these, there were the more gentlemanly, though less tolerable robbers,

such as the notorious Rob Roy, who made no more ado about seizing

another man's cattle than a grazier does of driving from market a drove

of oxen for which he has paid every shilling demanded.

But now, the laying aside of a sum sufficient for the education of his

children is an object which a Scotchman seldom loses sight of, both when

he thinks of marrying and settling in life, and at every future period;

and it is to this habit, handed down from father to son, that the Scotch

owe their morality. One of their own writers says, "we have scarcely

any rural population who are not perfectly aware of the importance of

education, and not willing to make sacrifices to secure it to their

children."

Having seen something of the excellence of education in improving the

social and moral habits of a community, and in banishing pauperism and

crime from among those who become the happy subjects of its uplifting

power, let us, for the purpose of becoming more alive to its importance,

consider the condition of a people where the masses are not brought

under its benign influence.

Spain, which has been already referred to in illustration of the evils

of ignorance, affords a striking illustration for our present purpose.

Until after the lapse of one third of the present century, there was but

ONE newspaper published in this country! "Yes, one miserable government

gazette was the sole channel through which twelve or fourteen millions

of people, spread over a vast territory, were to be supplied with

information on the momentous affairs of their own country, and of the

whole external world."--_National Education_, vol. ii., p. 136.

"The most authentic return of the number of children receiving education

in Spain was made in the year 1803, and it is believed that but little

change has taken place since that time. According to the returns, the

number of children receiving education, exclusive of those brought up in

convents and monasteries, was only one in every three hundred and

forty-six of the population! M. Jonnes estimates the population at about

fourteen millions and a half, and assuming, as he does, that about the

same fraction of the population is receiving education as in 1803, he

estimates the present number of children in school in the whole of Spain

at not more than about forty-three thousand; and, pursuing his

calculations, he shows that, if his data be correct, not more than one

child in thirty-five ever goes to school. He further states that the

children thus favored are exclusively from the middle and upper

classes."[46]--_National Education_, vol. ii., p. 130-1.

[46] The writer would here remark, in reference to extracts made from

various authors, that, for the sake of abridging, he has often, as in

this case, left out parts of a paragraph, but never so as to modify the

meaning. Some ideas, not connected with the subject in hand, are

omitted, but none are changed.

How far the education given to the favored few is of a practical and

useful kind, may be conjectured from the following extract from M.

Jonnes's work. After speaking of the many libraries, schools, colleges,

and universities, the creation of past times, but which still exist, he

remarks, that "these institutions were intended for a state of society

which had nothing in common with that of the present day. The kind of

instruction afforded in them, confined as it is to prayer, church

discipline, and the dogmas of theology, has no connection with the

interests and wants of the existing generation.

"What every enlightened man in Spain has long called for is a national,

popular, gratuitous education, extending to all classes, as well in the

towns as in the rural districts. Up to the present time, the people have

received no other instruction than that offered by the clergy, which has

had scarcely any other object than the performance of religious

ceremonies."

In addition to what has been already stated, it may be remarked, that

even with those who know how to read, "books and study are almost out of

the question, because, unless in the principal cities, public libraries

are nowhere to be found, and private libraries are luxuries that few

possess."

If education is conducive to virtue, and ignorance fosters crime, what

must be the social and moral state of a country in which ignorance is so

prevalent! "The amount of crime in Spain is appalling. We have before us

a return of convictions for the year 1826, from which we shall make some

extracts. Our reason for taking this year is simply because we are

unable to procure any return for a later one. The number of convictions

for murder in England and Wales in the year 1826 was thirteen, and the

number convicted of wounding, etc., with intent to kill, was fourteen.

These numbers are lamentably large. That the horrible crime of murder

should ever be perpetrated is a most melancholy fact; and that so many

as thirteen murders should be committed in one year must fill the mind

of every moral man and lover of his country with grief and shame. But

great as this number is absolutely, it sinks into insignificance when

compared with the number of murders perpetrated in Spain; for in that

unhappy country, in the single year of 1826, the number of convictions

for murder reached the frightful height of TWELVE HUNDRED AND

THIRTY-THREE! in addition to which, there were seventeen hundred and

seventy-three convictions on charges of maiming with intent to kill, and

sixteen hundred and twenty persons were convicted of robbery under

aggravated circumstances. We doubt not for an instant THIS MASS OF CRIME

IS THE OFFSPRING OF IGNORANCE."--_National Education_, vol. ii., p. 144.

It has been well remarked that the truest proofs of a good government

are just laws, and that the best evidence of a well-organized government

is to be found in the strict execution of these laws. "Judging the

Spanish government by these tests, it will appear the worst and weakest

government that ever held together. Justice of no kind has any

existence; there is the most lamentable insecurity of person and

property; redress is never certain, because both judgment and the

execution of the laws are left to men so inadequately paid that they

must depend for their subsistence upon bribery. Nothing is so difficult

as to bring a man to trial who has any thing in his purse, except to

bring him to execution: this, unless in Madrid and Catalonia, is

impossible, for _money will always buy indemnity_.

"I can state, upon certain information received in Madrid, that the

principal Spanish diligences pay black mail to the banditti for their

protection. This arrangement was at first entered into with some

difficulty; and from a gentleman who was present at the interview

between the person employed to negotiate on behalf of the diligences and

the representative of the banditti, I learned a few particulars. The

diligences in question were those between Madrid and Seville, and the

sum offered for their protection was not objected to, but another

difficulty was started. 'I have nothing to say against the terms you

offer,' said the negotiator for the banditti, 'and I will at once insure

you against being molested by robbers of consequence! but as for the

_small fry_, I can not be responsible! we respect the engagements

entered into by each other, _but there is nothing like honor among the

petty thieves_.' The proprietors of the diligences, however, were

satisfied with the assurance of protection against the great robbers,

and the treaty was concluded; but not long afterward one of the coaches

was stopped and rifled by the petty thieves: this led to an arrangement

which has ever since proved effectual; one of the chiefs accompanies the

coach on its journey, and overawes, by his name and reputation, the

robbers of inferior degree."--_Spain in_ 1830, vol. i., p. 2.

A volume might be filled with similar testimony, showing the great

insecurity of person and property in various parts of this unhappy

country. Even "a woman who dares prosecute the murderer of her husband

speedily receives a private intimation that effectually silences her;

and it has not been uncommon for money to be put into the hands of an

escrivano[47] previous to the commission of a murder, in order to insure

the services and protection of a person so necessary to one who

meditates crime."

[47] The _escrivanos_, who figure so largely in Spain, are the

representatives of the lowest class of attorneys. Nothing can be done

without them, and they are not unfrequently almost the sole authority in

a place capable of reading and writing. Notwithstanding the miserable

state of the rural districts, they contrive to make money, and many of

them rise from this humble office to much higher places in the state.

Their wretched appointments are, consequently, objects of competition. I

witnessed the execution of one at Seville by accidentally entering the

Plaza, where the Capuchins were bawling out the last words for his

repetition, announcing to the crowd that they had done their duty, and

he died in the true faith. He had been superseded in some village in the

vicinity, and assassinated his rival.--_Cook's Sketches in Spain_, vol.

i., p. 197.

_Spain abounds in poverty._ Ignorance conduces to crime, which, as we

have seen, is at once a cause and an effect of poverty. In view of what

has already been said of the ignorance and immorality of the Spaniards,

one would readily enough infer that poverty exists among them to a

deplorable extent, and it is even so. In this country "every thing,

indeed, appears to have conspired to paralyze industry, and to render of

no avail the natural fertility of the soil. The havoc of war; the

plunder committed by organized and powerful bodies of robbers; the

rapacity of government and of its army of officers; the exclusion of

foreign goods, and the consequent shutting up of the foreign market; the

ignorance of the people as to the best modes of agriculture; and, last

of all, the want of capital--all these combine to produce squalid

poverty in a land which ought to," and, with a good system of popular

education, most assuredly would, "ABOUND IN WEALTH."

Scotland and Spain have been referred to, not to bring out a few facts

in history merely, but to illustrate an important truth. Where a good

system of popular education is well administered in a country, and, as a

consequence, intelligence, industry, and morality become universal among

its citizens, they will eventually become a wealthy, and a

highly-prosperous and happy community, even though they derive their

subsistence from a naturally unfruitful soil; but, on the contrary,

where popular education is neglected in a commonwealth, and its future

citizens, as a consequence, grow up in ignorance, idleness, and vice,

squalid poverty and flagrant crime will become prevalent throughout a

wretched and degenerate community, that is scarcely able to gain a mere

subsistence from a naturally productive soil.

In further confirmation of the truth of the proposition that education

diminishes crime, I will introduce the following statistics, gleaned

from various official documents respecting prisons. According to returns

to the British Parliament, the commitments for crimes in an average of

nine years in proportion to population are as follows: In Manchester,

the most infidel city in the nation, 1 in 140; in London, 1 in 800; in

all Ireland, 1 in 1600; and in Scotland, celebrated for learning and

religion, 1 in 20,000!

The Rev. Dr. Forde, for many years the Ordinate of Newgate, London,

represents _ignorance_ as the first great cause, and _idleness_ as the

second, of all the crimes committed by the inmates of that celebrated

prison. Sir Richard Phillips, sheriff of London, says that, on the

memorial addressed to the sheriffs by 152 criminals in the same

institution, 25 only signed their names in a fair hand, 26 in an

illegible scrawl, and that 101, two thirds of the entire number, were

_marksmen_, signing with a cross. Few of the prisoners could read with

facility; more than half of them could not read at all; the most of them

thought books were useless, and were totally ignorant of the nature,

object, and end of religion.

The Rev. Mr. Clay, chaplain to the House of Correction in Lancashire,

represents that out of 1129 persons committed, 554 could not read; 222

were barely capable of reading; 38 only could read well; and only 8, or

1 in 141, could read and write well. One half of the 1129 prisoners were

quite ignorant of the simplest truths; 37 of these, 1 in 20 of the

entire number, were occasional readers of the Bible; and only _one_ out

of this large number was familiar with the Holy Scriptures and

conversant with the principles of religion. Among the 516 represented as

entirely ignorant, 125 were incapable of repeating the Lord's Prayer.

In the New York State Prisons, as examined a few years ago, more than

three fourths of the convicts had either received no education or a very

imperfect one. Out of 842 at Sing Sing, 289 could not read or write, and

only 42--less than 1 in 20--had received a good common school education.

Auburn prison presents similar statistics. Out of 228 prisoners, only 59

could read, write, and cipher, and 60 could do neither.

The chaplain of the Ohio penitentiary remarks that not only in the

prison of that state, but in others, depraved appetites and corrupt

habits, which have led to the commission of crime, are usually found

with the ignorant, uninformed, and duller part of mankind. Of 276 at one

time in that institution, nearly all were below mediocrity, and 175 are

represented as grossly ignorant, and, in point of education, scarcely

capable of transacting the ordinary business of life.

The preceding, it is believed, is no more than a fair specimen of the

criminal statistics of this country and of the civilized world. I will

conclude this dark catalogue by introducing a statement in relation to

education and crime in a state which, according to the last general

census, contained fewer persons in proportion to the whole population

who were unable to read and write than any other state in the Union.

From this statement it appears that as a people become more generally

intelligent and moral, a greater proportion of their criminals will be

found among the ignorant and neglected classes.

The chaplain of the Connecticut State Prison states that, out of 190

prisoners, not one was liberally educated, or a member of either of the

learned professions. Of the whole number, 109 were natives of

Connecticut; and of these, many of them could not understand the

plainest sentences which they read, and their moral culture had been

more neglected than their intellectual. From the investigations of this

officer, it appears that out of every 100 prisoners only two could be

found who could read, write, and were temperate, and only four who could

read, write, and followed any regular trade.

It is evident, then, that while education increases the wealth and

general happiness of a community, the want of it will reduce a people to

a state of poverty and wretchedness; or, to repeat a sentiment placed at

the head of this article, the different countries of the world, if

arranged according to the state of education in them, will be found to

be arranged also according to wealth, morals, and general happiness; at

the same time, the condition of the people, and the extent of crime and

violence among them, follow a like order.

I might appropriately add under this head that a proper attention to the

subject of education would greatly diminish the number of _fatal

accidents_; that it would save _many lives_, prevent much of _idiocy_

and _insanity_, and a multitude of evils that ordinarily result from

ignorance of the organic laws.

FATAL ACCIDENTS.--He who understands the laws of motion knows that a man

jumping from a carriage at speed is in great danger of falling after his

feet reach the ground, for his body has the same forward velocity as if

he had been running with the speed of the carriage, and unless he

continues to advance his feet as in running to support his advancing

body, he must as certainly be dashed to the ground as a runner whose

feet are suddenly arrested. If, then, there is danger in leaping from a

carriage in motion, how much greater is the hazard in jumping from a

rail-road car under full headway. And yet many do this, jumping off

side-wise, so that it is impossible to advance; and some even jump in

the opposite direction from the motion of the car, which increases the

already imminent hazard. From statistics recently collected, it appears

that the great majority of accidents on the rail-roads of this country

have happened in this way, a want of practical conformity to this one

law of motion being the prevailing cause of fatality along these

thoroughfares. This is but a specimen of the fatal accidents that are

continually occurring in the every-day transactions of life, which might

be prevented as easily as this by the practical application of a single

scientific principle.

LOSS OF LIFE.--In a single hospital at Dublin, during four years, 2944

children out of 7650, about 40 in 100, died within a fortnight after

their birth. Dr. Clark, the attending physician, suspecting a want of

pure air to be the cause, provided for the ventilation of all the

apartments; and by means of pipes six inches in diameter, introduced

into every room a current of fresh, pure air, which is essential to

vitality, and allowed that which was vitiated by respiration to escape.

The consequence was, that during the three succeeding years only 165 out

of 4243 children died within the first two weeks, or less than 4 in 100.

As there was no other known cause of improvement in the health of these

children, it may be justly inferred that, during the four years first

mentioned, 2650 children, nine tenths of the whole number, had perished

for want of pure air.

It has been estimated that about 40 in every 100 of the deaths annually

occurring in Great Britain and the United States are of children under

five years of age. To avoid every possibility of exaggeration, we will

place the number in this country at 30 in 100. At this rate we lose

about 200,000 children under five years of age every year. Now, if nine

tenths of the mortality among infants in the Dublin Hospital were caused

by breathing bad air, we may reasonably infer that at least one half of

the deaths in the United States of children under the age of five years

proceed from the same fatal cause. And those who have noticed what pains

are taken by excessively careful mothers[48] and ignorant nurses to

exclude from the lungs of infants the "free, pure, unadulterated air of

heaven," and, by means of many thicknesses of enveloping shawls and

blankets, require them to re-respire portions at least of their own

breath, until it becomes a virulent and deadly poison, will think with

me that this is a low estimate, and wonder that the swaddling-cloths of

more infants do not become their winding-sheets. But, even according to

this estimate, 100,000 children in the United States annually fall

victims to the ignorance of their fond mothers. Many thousands more are

subsequently sacrificed in consequence of occupying small and

unventilated bed-rooms and school-rooms, which, by a practical knowledge

of the principles of physiology, might be saved. Perhaps as many more

become sufferers for life from the same cause, for a thousand forms of

disease, as it manifests itself in every stage of life, either owe their

existence or their severity to breathing bad air. These, then, who drag

out a miserable existence in consequence of this cruel treatment, are to

be more pitied than those who fall its ready victims.

[48] It would seem that the great majority of "educated mothers" do not

realize the necessity of supplying pure air to the new-born child.

Before birth, the blood of the fetus is purified in the maternal lungs;

after birth, in the lungs of the child, if at all; and for this purpose

pure air is necessary.

If so many thousand deaths occur annually in the United States from this

one cause, in addition to the vast amount of misery which is entailed

upon the wretched survivors, how many hundred thousand precious lives

might be saved, and what untold wretchedness might be prevented, by a

strict conformity to those physiological laws of our being which might

and should be generally taught in the common schools of the land.

EDUCATION AND IDIOCY.[49]--The education of idiots has hitherto been

regarded as paradoxical, and still is by the mass of mankind; but that

it is possible to improve the condition of this most wretched and

helpless class of persons none need longer doubt. The experiment has

succeeded in both Europe and America. Massachusetts has the honor of

taking the lead in this country; and it is meet that it should be so,

for she has long, like a wise parent, been accustomed to care for all

her children. She had most readily and generously seconded the efforts

of humane men for the relief of the insane, the deaf mutes, and the

blind, and made provision for their care and instruction. She extended

her maternal love to the _bodies_ of those who were in hopeless idiocy,

but as for _minds_, they seemed to have none; they were, therefore, kept

out of sight of the public as much as possible until the year 1846, when

a board of commissioners were appointed "to inquire into the condition

of the idiots of the commonwealth, to ascertain their number, and

whether any thing can be done in their behalf."

[49] The statements under this head are drawn from Dr. Howe's Report on

Idiocy, made in February last, and communicated by the governor to the

Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The author visited the

Institution in South Boston during the past summer, and derived much

information on the subject from personal observation and inquiry.

In their report the commissioners say that, "by diligent and careful

inquiries in nearly one hundred towns in different parts of the state,

we have ascertained the existence and examined the condition of _five

hundred and seventy-five_ human beings who are condemned to hopeless

idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbors, and

left to their own brutishness. They are also idiotic in a legal sense;

that is, they are regarded as incapable of entering into contracts, and

are irresponsible for their actions."

The commissioners conclude that, "if the other parts of the state

contain the same proportion of idiots to their whole population, the

total number in the commonwealth is between _fourteen and fifteen

hundred_!" Now if we make the same estimate in proportion to the entire

population, it will appear that in the United States there are upward of

_thirty-five thousand_ persons in the most wretched and helpless

condition of idiocy.

In view of the great number of idiots in the commonwealth, the

commissioners say, "it appeared to us certain that the existence of so

many idiots in every generation must be the consequence of some

violation of the _natural laws_; that where there was so much suffering

there must have been sin. We resolved, therefore, to seek for the

_sources_ of the evil, as well as to gauge the depth and extent of the

misery."

Some of the causes of idiocy are set forth in the report, two of which

are as follows: first, _the low condition of the physical organization_

of one or both parents, induced often by _intemperance_; second, _the

intermarriage of relatives_.

The report states that out of 420 cases of congenital idiocy which were

examined, some information was gained respecting the condition of the

progenitors of 359. Now in all these cases, save only four, it was found

that one or the other, or both, of the immediate progenitors of the

unfortunate sufferer had in some way widely departed from the normal

condition of health, and violated the natural laws. That is to say, one

or the other, or both of them, had been very unhealthy or scrofulous; or

hereditarily predisposed to affections of the brain, causing occasional

insanity; or had intermarried with blood relatives; or had been

intemperate; or had been guilty of sensual excesses which impair the

constitution.[50]

[50] The subject of hereditary transmission of diseased tendency is of

vast importance, but it is a difficult one to treat, because a squeamish

delicacy makes people avoid it; but if ever the race is to be relieved

of a tithe of the bodily ills which flesh is now heir to, it must be by

a clear understanding of, and a willing obedience to, the law which

makes the parents the blessing or the curse of the children; the givers

of strength, and vigor, and beauty, or the dispensers of debility, and

disease, and deformity. It is by the lever of enlightened parental love,

more than by any other power, that mankind is to be raised to the

highest attainable point of bodily perfection.--DR. S. G. HOWE.

INTEMPERANCE AND IDIOCY.--Out of the three hundred and fifty-nine

idiots, the condition of whose progenitors was ascertained, _ninety-nine

were the children of drunkards_. But this does not tell the whole story

by any means. By drunkard is meant a person who is a notorious and

habitual sot. Many persons who are habitually intemperate do not get

this name _even now_; much less would they have done so twenty-five or

thirty years ago. By a pretty careful inquiry, with an especial view of

ascertaining the number of idiots of the lowest class whose parents were

known to be _temperate_ persons, it is found that _not one quarter_ can

be so considered.

From the pretty uniform action of a physiological law, which is now

becoming well understood, it appears that idiots, fools, and simpletons,

either in the first or second generation, are common among the progeny

of intemperate persons, and may be considered as an effect of the

_habitual_ use of alcohol, even in moderate quantities. If, moreover,

one considers how many children of intemperate parents there are who,

without being idiots, are deficient in bodily and mental energy, and

predisposed by their very organization to have cravings for alcoholic

stimulants, it will be seen what an immense burden the drinkers of one

generation throw upon the succeeding one.

IDIOCY AND THE MARRIAGE OF RELATIVES.--Out of the three hundred and

fifty-nine cases of congenital idiocy already referred to, in which the

parentage was ascertained, "seventeen were _known_ to be the children of

parents nearly related by blood; but, as many of these cases were

adults, it was impossible to ascertain, in some cases, whether their

parents, who were dead, were related or not before marriage. From some

collateral evidence, we conclude that at least three more cases should

be added to the seventeen. This would show that more than one twentieth

of the idiots examined are offspring of the marriage of relations. Now,

as marriages between near relations are by no means in the ratio of one

to twenty, nor even, perhaps, as one to a thousand to the marriages

between persons not related, it follows that the proportion of idiotic

progeny is vastly greater in the former than in the latter case. Then it

should be considered that idiocy is only _one_ form in which Nature

manifests that she has been offended by such intermarriages. It is

probable that blindness, deafness, imbecility, and other infirmities,

are more likely to be the lot of the children of parents related by

blood than of others. The probability, therefore, of unhealthy or infirm

issue from such marriages becomes fearfully great, and the existence of

the law against them is made out as clearly as though it were written on

tables of stone.

"The statistics of the seventeen families, the heads of which, being

blood relatives, intermarried, tells a fearful tale. Most of the parents

were intemperate or scrofulous; some were both the one and the other; of

course, there were other causes to increase chances of infirm offspring

besides that of the intermarriage. There were born unto them ninety-five

children, of whom forty-four were idiotic, twelve others were scrofulous

and puny, one was deaf, and one was a dwarf! In some cases, all the

children were either idiotic, or very scrofulous and puny. In one family

of eight children, five were idiotic."

CONDITION OF IDIOTS.--From what has been said of the character of

parents to whom are born the greatest proportion of this most wretched

and helpless class of persons, their condition and treatment might be

inferred. To rear healthy children properly, a knowledge of the

principles of physiology and mental science is essentially necessary.

This knowledge is still more important in the treatment of idiots. Dr.

Howe is of the opinion that it requires a rarer and higher kind of

talent to teach an idiot than a youth of superior talent. When the time

comes that schools for idiots are established all over the country, he

thinks "it will be found more difficult to get good teachers for them

than to get good professors for our colleges."

After excepting five or six alms-houses in which the idiots are treated

both kindly and wisely, the commissioners say, "the general condition of

those at the public charge is most deplorable. They are filthy,

gluttonous, lazy, and given up to abominations of various kinds. They

not only do not improve, but they sink deeper and deeper into bodily

depravity and mental degradation. Bad, however, as is the condition of

the idiots who are at public charge, and gross as is the ignorance of

those who take the charge of them about their real wants and

capabilities, we are constrained to say that the condition of those in

private houses is, generally speaking, still worse, and the ignorance of

the relatives and friends who support them is still more profound."

This is not to be wondered at when we consider that idiots are generally

born of a very poor stock--of persons who are subject to some disorders

of the brain, or who are themselves scrofulous and puny to the last

degree. Such persons are, generally, very feeble in intellect, poor in

purse, and intemperate in habits. A great many of them are hardly able

to take care of themselves. They are unfit to teach or train common

children; how much less to take the charge of idiots, whose education is

the most difficult of all!

The commissioners ascertained, mainly by personal observation, the

condition of three hundred and fifty-five idiotic persons who are not

town or state paupers. Of these there may be, at the most, five who are

treated very judiciously; who are taught by wise and discreet persons,

and whose faculties and capabilities are developed to their fullest

extent; but the remaining three hundred and fifty are generally "in a

most deplorable condition as it respects their bodily, mental, and moral

treatment."[51]

[51] One would hardly be credited if he should put down half the

instances of gross ignorance manifested by parents in this enlightened

community [the State of Massachusetts] in the treatment of idiotic

children. Sometimes they find that the children seem to comprehend what

they hear, but soon forget it; hence they conclude that the brain is

soft, and can not retain impressions, and then they cover the head with

cold poultices of oak-bark in order to tan or harden the fibers. Others,

finding that it is exceedingly difficult to make any impression upon the

mind, conclude that the brain is too hard, and they torture the poor

child with hot and _softening_ poultices of bread and milk; or they

plaster tar over the whole skull, and keep it on for a long time. _These

are innocent applications compared with some, which doubtless render

weak-minded children perfectly idiotic._--DR. S. G. HOWE.

What a striking illustration have we here of the necessity of diffusing

correct physiological information more widely among the masses than has

yet been done even in enlightened Massachusetts!

The commissioners come to the unquestionable conclusion in their report

that "nothing can afford a stronger argument in favor of an institution

for the proper training and teaching of idiots, and the dissemination of

information upon the subject, than the striking difference manifested in

the condition of the few children who are properly cared for and

judiciously treated, and those who are neglected or abused. There are

cases in our community of youths who are idiotic from birth, but who,

under proper care and training, have become cleanly in person, quiet in

deportment, industrious in habits, and who would almost pass in society

for persons of common intelligence; and yet their natural capacity was

no greater than that of others, who, from ignorance or neglect of their

parents, have become filthy, gluttonous, lazy, vicious, depraved, and

are rapidly sinking into driveling idiocy. This fact alone should be

enough to encourage the state to take measures at once for the

establishment of a school or institution for teaching or training

idiots, if it were but a matter of experiment."

Massachusetts is the only state in the Union that as yet has attempted

to do any thing for the education and training of this hitherto

neglected class of persons. The result of the first year's experiment

has been most gratifying and encouraging. Of the whole number received,

there was not one who was in a situation where any great improvement in

his condition was probable, or hardly possible; they were growing worse

in habits, and more confirmed in their idiocy. But the process of

deterioration in the pupils has been entirely stopped, and that of

improvement has commenced; and though a year is a very short time in the

instruction of such persons, yet its effects are manifest in all of

them. They have improved in personal appearance and habits, in general

health, in vigor, and in activity of body. Some of them can control

their appetites in a considerable degree; they sit at the table with

their teachers, and feed themselves decently. Almost all of them have

improved in the understanding and the use of speech. Some of them have

made considerable progress in the knowledge of language; they can select

words printed on slips of paper, and a few can read simple sentences.

But, what is most important, THEY HAVE MADE A START FORWARD.

"There is ground for confidence that the reasonable hopes of the friends

of the experiment will be satisfied. All that they promised has been

accomplished, so far as was possible in the period of a year. It has

been demonstrated that idiots are CAPABLE OF IMPROVEMENT, and that they

can be raised from a state of _low degradation_ to a HIGHER CONDITION.

How far they can be elevated, and to what extent they may be educated,

can only be shown by the experience of the future. The result of the

past year's trial, however, gives confidence that each succeeding year

will show even more progress than any preceding one."

EDUCATION AND INSANITY.--It is well established that a defective and

faulty education through the period of infancy and childhood is one of

the most prolific causes of insanity. Such an education, or rather

miseducation, causes a predisposition in many, and excites one where it

already exists, which ultimately renders the animal propensities of our

nature uncontrollable. Appetites indulged and perverted, passions

unrestrained, propensities rendered vigorous by indulgence, and

subjected to no salutary restraint, bring persons into a condition in

which both moral and physical causes easily operate to produce insanity,

if they do not produce it themselves.

We must look to well-directed systems of popular education, having for

their object physical improvement, no less than mental and moral

culture, to relieve us from many of the evils which "flesh is heir to,"

and nothing can so effectually secure us from this most formidable

disease (as well as from others not less appalling) as that system of

instruction which teaches us how to preserve the normal condition of the

body and the mind; to fortify the one against the catalogue of physical

causes which every where assail us, and to elevate the other above the

influence of the trials and disappointments of life, so that the host of

moral causes which affect the brain, through the medium of the mind,

shall be inoperative and harmless.

Those first principles of physical education which teach us how to

avoid disease are all-important to all liable to insanity from

hereditary predisposition. The physical health must be attended to, and

the training of the faculties of the mind be such as to counteract the

over-active propensities of our nature--correcting the bias of the mind

to wrong currents and to too great activity by bringing into action the

antagonizing powers, and thus giving a sound body and a well-balanced

mind. Neglect of this early training entails evils upon the young which

are felt in all after life.

These positions are stated and amplified in the able reports of Dr. S.

B. Woodward, superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum, Worcester,

Mass., to which the reader is referred. They are also corroborated by

persons who have had the care of the insane in other institutions. In

the eighteenth annual report of the physician and superintendent of the

Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, Dr. Brigham says, "a knowledge of

the nature of the disease would frequently lead to its prevention.

Insanity, in most cases, arises from undue excitement and labor of the

brain; for even if a predisposition to it is inherited, an exciting

cause is essential to its development. Hence every thing likely to cause

great excitement of the brain, especially in early life, should be

avoided.

"The records of cases at this institution and my own observation justify

me in saying that the neglect of moral discipline, the too great

indulgence of the passions and emotions in early life, together with the

excessive and premature exercise of the mental powers, are among the

most frequent causes that predispose to insanity. But these causes are

in no other way operative in producing insanity than by unduly exciting

the brain. By neglect of moral discipline, a character is formed subject

to violent passions, and to extreme emotions and anxiety from the

unavoidable evils and disappointments of life, and thus the brain, by

being often and violently agitated, becomes diseased; and by too early

exercising and prematurely developing the mental powers, this organ is

rendered more susceptible and liable to disease.

"I am confident there is too much mental labor imposed upon youth at our

schools and colleges. There have been several admissions of young ladies

at this institution direct from boarding-schools, and of young men from

college, where they had studied excessively. Should such intense

exertion of the mind in youth not lead to insanity or immediate disease,

it predisposes to dyspepsy, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and affections

allied to insanity, and which are often its precursors. Should that

portion of the community who now act most wisely in obtaining a

knowledge of the functions of the digestive organs, and in carefully

guarding them from undue excitation, be equally regardful of the brain,

they would do a very great service to society, and, in my opinion, do

much toward arresting the alarming increase of insanity, and all

disorders of the nervous system."[52]

[52] In the education of many, very many, I fear, the same mistake is

made as in the case of Lord Dudley, thus described in a late number of

the London Quarterly Review: "The irritable susceptibility of the brain

was stimulated at the expense of bodily power and health. His foolish

tutors took a pride in his precocious progress, which they ought to have

kept back. They watered the forced plant with the blood of life; they

encouraged the violation of Nature's laws, which are not to be broken in

vain; they infringed the condition of conjoint moral and physical

existence; they imprisoned him in a vicious circle, where the overworked

brain injured the stomach, which reacted to the injury of the brain.

They watched the slightest deviation from the rules of logic, and

neglected those of dietetics, to which the former are a farce. They

thought of no exercises but Latin; they gave him a Gradus instead of a

cricket-bat, until his mind became too keen for its mortal coil, and the

foundation was laid for ill health, derangement of stomach, moral

pusillanimity, irresolution, lowness of spirits, and all the Protean

miseries of nervous disorders, by which his after life was haunted, and

which are sadly depicted in almost every letter before us."

EDUCATION INCREASES HUMAN HAPPINESS.

What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure He that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To rust in us unused.--SHAKSPEARE.

All the happiness of man is derived from discovering, applying, or

obeying the laws of his Creator; and all his misery is the result of

ignorance or disobedience.--DR. WAYLAND.

If the doctrines taught and the sentiments inculcated in the preceding

chapters of this work, but more especially in the preceding sections of

this chapter, are true; if it is established that education dissipates

the evils of ignorance; that it increases the productiveness of labor;

that it diminishes pauperism and crime--if all this is true, it may seem

a work of supererogation to attempt the establishment of the proposition

that education increases human happiness. I admit this seeming

impropriety; for that the proposition is true may be legitimately

inferred from what has gone before. But I wish to amplify and extend

this thought, and to show that education has, if possible, still higher

claims upon our attention than have yet been presented; that it not only

has the power of removing physical and moral evils, and of multiplying

and augmenting personal and social enjoyments, but that, when rightly

understood, it constitutes our chief good; that to it, and to it only,

we may safely look for man's highest and enduring joys, and for the

permanent elevation of the race.

MAN IN IGNORANCE.--That we may be the better prepared to appreciate the

advantages of education, and its usefulness as a means of increasing

human happiness, let us consider the state and the enjoyments of the man

whose mind is shrouded in ignorance. He grows up to manhood like a

vegetable, or like one of the lower animals that are fed and nourished

for the slaughter. He exerts his physical powers because such exertion

is necessary for his subsistence. Were it otherwise, we should most

frequently find him dozing over the fire with a gaze as dull and stupid

as his ox, regardless of every thing but the gratification of his

appetites. He has, perhaps, been taught the art of reading, but has

never applied it to the acquisition of knowledge. His views are chiefly

confined to the objects immediately around him, and to the daily

avocations in which he is employed. His knowledge of society is

circumscribed within the limits of his neighborhood, and his views of

the world are confined within the range of the country in which he

resides, or of the blue hills which skirt his horizon.

Of the aspect of the globe in other countries, of the various tribes

with which these are peopled, of the seas and rivers, continents and

islands, which diversify the landscape of the earth, of the numerous

orders of animated beings which people the ocean, the atmosphere, and

the land, of the revolutions of nations, and the events which have taken

place in the history of the world, he has almost as little conception as

have the animals which range the forest.

In regard to the boundless regions that lie beyond him in the firmament,

and the bodies that roll there in magnificent grandeur, he has the most

confused and inaccurate ideas; indeed, he seldom troubles himself with

inquiries in relation to such subjects. Whether the stars are great or

small, whether they are near us or at a distance, and whether they move

or stand still, are to him matters of trivial importance. If the sun

gives him light by day and the moon by night, and the clouds distil

their watery treasures upon his parched fields, he is contented, and

leaves all such inquiries and investigations to those who have leisure

and inclination to engage in them. He views the canopy of heaven as

merely a ceiling to our earthly habitation, and the starry orbs as only

so many luminous tapers to diversify its aspect, and to afford a

glimmering light to the benighted traveler.

Such a person has no idea of the manner in which the understanding may

be enlightened and expanded by education; he has no relish for

intellectual pursuits, and no conception of the pleasures they afford;

and he sets no value on knowledge but in so far as it may increase his

riches and his sensual gratifications. He has no desire for making

improvements in his trade or domestic arrangements, and gives no

countenance to those useful inventions and public improvements which are

devised by others. He sets himself against every innovation, whether

religious, political, mechanical, or agricultural, and is determined to

abide by the "good old customs" of his forefathers, even though they

compel him to carry his grist to mill in one end of a bag, with a stone

in the other to balance it. Were it dependent upon him, the moral world

would stand still, as the material world was supposed to in former

times; all useful inventions would cease; existing evils would never be

remedied; ignorance and superstition would universally prevail; the

human mind would be arrested in its progress to perfection, and man

would never arrive at the true dignity of his intellectual nature.

It is evident that such an individual--and the world contains thousands

and millions of such characters--can never have his mind elevated to

those sublime objects and contemplations which enrapture the man of

science, nor feel those pure and exquisite pleasures which cultivated

minds so frequently experience; nor can he form those lofty and

expansive conceptions of the Deity which the grandeur and magnificence

of his works are calculated to inspire. He is left as a prey to all

those foolish notions and vain alarms which are engendered by ignorance

and superstition; and he swallows, without the least hesitation, all the

absurdities and childish tales respecting witches, hobgoblins, specters,

and apparitions, which have been handed down to him by his forefathers.

While the ignorant man thus gorges his mind with fooleries and

absurdities, he spurns at the discoveries of science as impositions on

the credulity of mankind, and contrary to reason and common sense. That

the sun is a million of times larger than the earth; that light flies

from his body at the rate of a hundred thousand miles in the hundredth

part of a second; and that the earth is whirling round its axis from day

to day with a velocity of a thousand miles every hour, are regarded by

him as notions far more improbable and extravagant than the story of the

"Wonderful Lamp," and all the other tales of the "Arabian Night's

Entertainments." In his hours of leisure from his daily avocations, his

thoughts either run wild among the most groveling objects, or sink into

sensuality and inanity; and solitude and retirement present no charms to

his vacant mind.

While human beings are thus immersed in ignorance, destitute of rational

ideas and of a solid substratum of thought, they can never experience

those pleasures and enjoyments which flow from the exercise of the

understanding, and which correspond to the dignity of a rational and

immortal nature.

AN ENLIGHTENED MIND.--On the other hand, the man whose mind is

irradiated with the light of substantial science has views, and

feelings, and exquisite enjoyments to which the former is an entire

stranger. In consequence of the numerous and multifarious ideas he has

acquired, he is introduced, as it were, into a new world, where he is

entertained with scenes, objects, and movements, of which the mind

enveloped in ignorance can form no conception. He can trace back the

stream of time to its commencement, and, gliding along its downward

course, can survey the most memorable events which have happened in

every part of its progress, from the primeval ages to the present day;

the rise of empires, the fall of kings, the revolutions of nations, the

battles of warriors, and the important events which have followed in

their train; the progress of civilization, and of the arts and sciences;

the judgments which have been inflicted on wicked nations, the dawnings

of Divine mercy toward our fallen race, the manifestation of the Son of

God in our nature, the physical changes and revolutions which have taken

place in the constitution of our globe; in short, the whole of the

leading events in the chain of divine dispensation, from the beginning

of the world to the period in which we live.

With his mental eye the enlightened man can survey the terraqueous globe

in all its variety of aspects; he can contemplate the continents,

islands, and oceans which surround its exterior; the numerous rivers by

which it is indented; the lofty ranges of mountains which diversify its

surface; its winding caverns; its forests, lakes, and sandy deserts; its

whirlpools, boiling springs, and glaciers; its sulphurous mountains,

bituminous lakes, and the states and empires into which it is

distributed; the tides and currents of the ocean; the icebergs of the

polar regions, and the verdant scenes of the torrid zone.

Sitting at his fireside during the blasts of winter, the enlightened man

can survey the numerous tribes of mankind scattered over the various

climates of the earth, and entertain himself with views of their

manners, customs, religion, laws, trade, manufactures, marriage

ceremonies, civil and ecclesiastical governments, arts, sciences,

cities, towns, and villages, and the animals peculiar to every region.

In his rural walks he can not only appreciate the beneficence of Nature,

and the beauties and harmonies of the vegetable kingdom in their

exterior aspect, but he can also penetrate into the hidden processes

which are going on in the roots, trunks, and leaves of plants and

flowers, and contemplate the numerous vessels through which the sap is

flowing from their roots through the trunks and branches; the millions

of pores through which their odoriferous effluvia exhale; their fine and

delicate texture; their microscopical beauties; their orders, genera,

and species, and their uses in the economy of nature.

Even when shrouded in darkness and in solitude, where other minds could

find no enjoyment, the man of knowledge can entertain himself with the

most sublime contemplations. He can trace the huge earth we inhabit

flying through the depths of space, carrying along with it its vast

population, at the rate of sixty thousand miles every hour, and, by the

inclination of its axis, bringing about the alternate succession of

summer and winter, of seed-time and harvest. By the aid of his telescope

he can transport himself toward the moon, and survey the circular

plains, the deep caverns, the conical hills, the lofty peaks, and the

rugged and romantic mountain scenery which diversify the surface of this

orb of night.

By the help of the same instrument he can range through the planetary

system, wing his way through the regions of space along with the

swiftest orbs, and trace many of the physical aspects and revolutions

which have a relation to distant worlds. He can transport himself to the

planet Saturn, and behold a stupendous ring six hundred thousand miles

in circumference, revolving in majestic grandeur every ten hours around

a globe nine hundred times larger than the earth, while seven moons

larger than ours, along with an innumerable host of stars, display their

radiance to adorn the firmament of that magnificent world. He can wing

his flight through the still more distant regions of the universe,

leaving the sun and all his planets behind him, till they appear like a

scarcely discernible speck in creation, and contemplate thousands and

millions of stars and starry systems beyond the range of the unassisted

eye, and wander among the suns and worlds dispersed throughout the

boundless dimensions of space.

In his imagination he can fill up those blanks which astronomy has never

directly explored, and conceive thousands of systems and ten thousands

of worlds beyond all that is visible by the optic tube, stretching out

to infinity on every hand, peopled with intelligences of various orders,

and all under the superintendence and government of the "King Eternal,

Immortal, and Invisible," whose power is omnipotent, and the limit of

his dominions past finding out.

It is evident that a mind capable of such excursions and contemplations

as I have now supposed must experience enjoyments infinitely superior to

those of the individual whose soul is enveloped in intellectual

darkness. If substantial happiness is chiefly situated in the mind; if

it depends on the multiplicity of objects which lie within the range of

its contemplation; if it is augmented by the view of scenes of beauty

and sublimity, and displays of infinite intelligence and power; if it is

connected with tranquillity of mind, which generally accompanies

intellectual pursuits, and the subjugation of the pleasures of sense to

the dictates of reason, the enlightened mind must enjoy gratifications

as far superior to those of the ignorant as man is superior in station

and capacity to the worms of the dust.

In order to illustrate this topic a little further, I shall select a few

facts and deductions in relation to science, which demonstrate the

interesting nature and delightful tendency of scientific pursuits.

There are several recorded instances of the powerful effect which the

study of astronomy has produced upon the human mind. Dr. Rittenhouse, of

Pennsylvania, after he had calculated the transit of Venus, which was to

happen June 3d, 1769, was appointed, at Philadelphia, with others, to

repair to the township of Norriston, and there to observe this planet

until its passage over the sun's disc should verify the correctness of

his calculations. This occurrence had never been witnessed but twice

before by an inhabitant of our earth, and was never to be again seen by

any person then living. A phenomenon so rare, and so important in its

bearings upon astronomical science, was, indeed, well calculated to

agitate the soul of one so alive as he was to the great truths of

nature. The day arrived, and there was no cloud on the horizon. The

observers, in silence and trembling anxiety, awaited for the predicted

moment of observation to arrive. It came, and in the instant of contact,

an emotion of joy so powerful was excited in the bosom of Dr.

Rittenhouse that he fainted.

Sir Isaac Newton, after he had advanced so far in his mathematical

proof of one of his great astronomical doctrines as to see that the

result was to be triumphant, was so affected in view of the momentous

truth he was about to demonstrate that he was unable to proceed, and

begged one of his companions in study to relieve him, and carry out the

calculation. These are striking illustrations, and the effect is perhaps

heightened from their connection with a most sublime science, all of

whose conclusions stand in open contradiction with those of superficial

and vulgar observation.

But the discovery and contemplation of truths in philosophy, chemistry,

and the mathematics have, in numerous instances, awakened kindred

emotions. The enlightened man sees in every thing he beholds upon the

surface of the earth, whether animal or vegetable, and in the very

elements themselves, no less than when contemplating the wonders of

astronomy, instances innumerable illustrative of the wisdom and

beneficence of the Architect, all of which has a direct tendency to

increase his happiness. In the invisible atmosphere which surrounds him,

where other minds discern nothing but an immense blank, he beholds an

assemblage of wonders, and a striking scene of divine wisdom and

omnipotence. He views this invisible agent not only as a _material_, but

as a _compound_ substance, composed of two opposite principles, the one

the source of flame and animal life, and the other destructive to both.

He perceives the atmosphere as the agent under the Almighty which

produces the germination and growth of plants, and all the beauties of

the vegetable creation; which preserves water in a liquid state,

supports fire and flame, and produces animal heat; which sustains the

clouds, and gives buoyancy to the feathered tribes; which is the cause

of winds, the vehicle of smells, the medium of sounds, the source of all

the pleasures we derive from the harmonies of music, the cause of the

universal light and splendor which is diffused around us, and of the

advantages we derive from the morning and evening twilight. He

contemplates it as the prime mover in a variety of machines, as

impelling ships across the ocean, raising balloons to the region of the

clouds, blowing our furnaces, raising water from the deepest pits,

extinguishing fires, and performing a thousand other beneficent

agencies, without which our globe would cease to be habitable. No one

can doubt that all these views and contemplations have a direct tendency

to enlarge the capacity of the mind, to stimulate its faculties, and to

produce rational enjoyment.

But there is another view of this subject which is perhaps still more

impressive. The atmosphere, it has been stated, is a compound substance.

A knowledge of its elementary principles, which chemistry teaches,

introduces its possessor to a new world of happiness. The adaptation of

air to respiration, and the influence of a change in the nature or

proportion of its elements upon health and longevity, have already been

considered.[53] We have seen that carbonic acid, the vitiating product

of respiration, although immediately fatal to animals, constitutes the

very life of vegetation; that in the growth of plants the vitiated air

is purified and fitted again for the sustenance of animal life; and

that, by a beneficent provision of the Creator, animals and vegetables

are thus perpetually interchanging kindly offices. It will suffice for

our present purpose simply to remind the reader that the atmosphere is

composed of the two gases, oxygen and nitrogen, united in the ratio of

one to four by volume. Oxygen is a supporter of combustion, nitrogen is

not. Increase the proportion of oxygen in the air, and the same

substances burn with increased brilliancy; but diminish the proportion

gradually, and they will burn more and more dimly until they become

extinct. Iron and steel, as well as wood and the ordinary combustibles,

will burn with great brilliancy in pure oxygen.

[53] See Chapter IV., especially from the 89th page to the 105th.

Water, I may add, is composed of the two gases, oxygen and hydrogen. The

former, as we have seen, is a supporter of combustion, and the latter is

one of the most combustible substances known. These two gases are nearly

two thousand times more voluminous than their equivalent of water, and,

when ignited, they _combine with explosive energy_. If, then, the

Creator were to decompose the atmosphere that surrounds the earth to the

height of forty-five miles, and the water that rests upon its surface,

either or both of them, the oxygen, being specifically heavier than the

nitrogen or hydrogen, would settle immediately upon the earth, and,

coming in contact with fires here and there, its whole surface would, in

an instant of time, be enveloped in one general conflagration, and "the

day of the Lord," spoken of in the Scriptures, "in which the heavens

shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with

fervent heat, the earth also, and the things therein shall be burned

up," would be speedily ushered in. He who understands the first

principles of chemical science can not fail to perceive how readily (and

in perfect accordance with laws well understood) such a general

conflagration would take place were the great Architect simply to

resolve these two elements--air and water--into their constituent parts.

How full of meaning to such a one are the words of the Psalmist, _The

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

handiwork_.

One more illustration must suffice. All fluids, except water, contract

in volume as they become colder to the point of congelation. But the

point of greatest density in water is about eight degrees above

freezing. As the temperature of ALL fluids _increases_ above this point,

their volume increases. As the temperature of all fluids, with the

single exception of WATER, _decreases_, the volume decreases down to the

freezing point. Water increases in density as it becomes colder until it

reaches the temperature of forty degrees--eight degrees above the

freezing point--when it begins to expand. This only exception to the

general law of fluids is of greater importance in the economy of nature

than most persons are conscious of. As the cold season advances in the

temperate and frigid zones, the water in our lakes and rivers is reduced

to the temperature of forty degrees; but at this point, by a beneficent

provision of an All-wise Providence, the upper substratum becomes

specifically lighter, and is converted into a covering of ice, which,

resting upon the water beneath, protects it from freezing. Moreover,

when water is converted into ice, one hundred and forty degrees of heat

are given out, a part of which, entering into the water below, retards

the further formation of ice.[54]

[54] I may here add, that exactly the _reverse_ is true in the _melting_

of snow and ice. It requires as much heat to convert these solids into

fluids, without at all increasing their temperature, as it does to raise

the temperature of water from the freezing point, one hundred and forty

degrees, or from thirty-two to one hundred and seventy-two degrees, as

indicated by the thermometer. This principle is of vast importance to

the world, and particularly to the inhabitants of cold countries, where

the ground is covered with snow and ice a part or the whole of the year.

The transition from the cold of winter to the heat of summer, in some of

the northern climates, takes place within a few days. In these climates,

also, there are vast accumulations of snow and ice, which, but for this

principle, would be converted into water as soon as the temperature of

the atmosphere becomes above thirty-two degrees, which would produce a

flood sufficient to inundate and destroy the whole country. But the

uniform action of this law renders the melting of snow gradual, and no

such accident ensues.

A similar law is observed in the conversion of _water_ into _vapor_,

which is of great use in enabling us to cool apartments by sprinkling

floors or hanging up moistened cloths. The heat of even a whole city is

in like manner greatly moderated by frequently sprinkling the streets.

It is on this account that gentle showers in hot weather are so cooling

and refreshing.

If water, like other fluids, continued to increase in density to the

freezing point, the cold air of winter would rob the water of our lakes

and rivers of its heat, until the whole was reduced to the temperature

of thirty-two degrees; when, but for the circumstance to which we have

just alluded, it would be immediately converted into a solid mass of ice

from top to bottom, causing instant death to every animal living in it.

The lower strata of such a mass of ice would never again become

liquefied.

This is a striking proof of the beneficence and design of the Creator in

forming water with such an exception to the ordinary laws of nature, and

a knowledge of it can hardly fail to exert a most salutary, elevating,

and ennobling influence on the mind of its possessor. The field of human

happiness, then, with the virtuous, seems to enlarge in proportion as a

knowledge of the works and laws of the beneficent Creator is extended.

There is little ground for doubt as to what is GOD'S WILL in relation to

the universal education of the family of man, when he has connected with

the exercise of mind in the study of his works superior enjoyments and

heavenly aspirations.

The various propositions stated and elucidated in this chapter, we

think, are as fully established as any moral truths need be, and, we

doubt not, they commend themselves to the judgment and conscience of all

who have carefully perused the preceding pages, if, indeed, they had not

been duly considered and adopted before. If, then, a system of

universal education, judiciously administered, would dissipate the evils

of ignorance, which are legion; if it would greatly increase the

productiveness of labor; if it would diminish--not to say

exterminate--pauperism and crime; if it would prevent the great majority

of fatal accidents that are constantly occurring in every community; if

it would save the lives of a hundred thousand children in the United

States every year, and as many more puny survivors from dragging out a

miserable existence in consequence of being the offspring of ignorant or

vicious parents; if it would prevent so much of idiocy, and would

humanize those who are born _idiots only_, but have hitherto been

permitted, nay, doomed to _die_ BRUTES; if it would prevent so much

insanity, and would save to society and their family and friends,

"clothed and in their right mind," multitudes of every generation who

now dwell in mental darkness and gloom; if it would increase the sum

total of human happiness in proportion to its excellence, and the number

of persons who are brought under its benign influence and uplifting

power; if it would do all this--and that this is its legitimate tendency

there can be no doubt--it would seem that no enlightened community could

be found in any country, and especially that there can be no state in

this Union, that would not at once resolve upon maintaining a system of

universal education by opening the doors of _improved free schools_ to

all her sons and daughters, and, if need be, employing agents, vigilant

and active, "to go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to

come in." If this is not done, thousands and tens of thousands of every

generation will continue to lead cheerless lives, and will go down to

their graves like the brute that perisheth, without knowing that He who

gave to man life has also, in his goodness, which knows no bounds,

provided that in the proper exercise of his faculties man shall find an

inexhaustible source of happiness.[55]

[55] In the annual report of the Trustees of the New England Institution

for the Education of the Blind for the year 1834, this beautiful passage

occurs: "The expression of one of the pupils, '_that she had never

known, before she began to learn, that it was a happiness to be alive_,'

may be applied to many."