BISHOP BURNET seems to have given the reply in the fewest words when he
observes: “The education of youth is the foundation of all that can be
performed for bettering the next age.”
“Education,” says Paley, “in the most extensive sense of the word, may
comprehend every preparation that is madef in our youth for the sequel
of our lives; and in this sense I use it. Some such preparation is
necessary for all conditions, because without it they must be miserable,
and probably will be vicious, when they grow up, either from the want of
the means of subsistence, or from want of rational and inoffensive
occupation. In civilised life, every thing is affected by art and skill.
Whence a person who is provided with neither (and neither can be
acquired without exercise and instruction) will be useless, and he that
is useless will generally be at the same time mischievous, to the
community. So that to send an uneducated child into the world is
injurious to the rest of mankind; it is little better than to turn out a
mad dog or a wild-beast into the streets.”
Who are the uneducated? is a question not easily to be answered in a
time when books have come to be household furniture in every habitation
of the civilised world. All that men have contrived, discovered, done,
felt, or imagined, is recorded in books; wherein whoso has learned to
spell printed letters may find such knowledge, and turn it to
advantageous account.
D’Israeli the younger, in one of his politico-economic speeches,
remarks: “As civilisation has gradually progressed, it has equalised the
physical qualities of man. Instead of the strong arm, it is now the
strong head that is the moving principle of society. You have
disenthroned Force, and placed on her high seat Intelligence; and the
necessary consequence of this great revolution is, that it has become
the duty and the delight equally of every citizen to cultivate his
faculties.”