2. The workings of the voluntary principle in the abundant supply of
places of worship, and in the support of religious institutions.
3. General education. With regard to their common schools, and also to
their colleges, they are far in advance of us in England. The existence
of universal suffrage has the effect of stimulating educational efforts
to a degree which would not otherwise be attained. The more respectable
and intelligent of the citizens are made to feel that, with universal
suffrage, their dearest institutions are all perilled unless the mass
be educated.
As education is the great question of the day, I must not omit to make
a few remarks on the Primary Schools of the United States. There is no
_national_ system of education in America. Congress does not interfere
in the matter, except in the "Territories" before they become "States."
The States of the Union are so many distinct Republics, and, in the
matter of education, as in all their internal affairs, are left
entirely to take their own measures. With regard to education, no two
States act precisely alike. If we glance at the States of
Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, we shall, however, discover the
three great types of what in this respect generally prevails throughout
the States.
MASSACHUSETTS.--Scarcely had the "Pilgrims" been half-a-dozen years in
their wilderness home before they began to make what they deemed a
suitable provision for the instruction of their children. They adopted
the same principle in reference to education and religion--that of
taxation. A general tax was not imposed; but the people in the various
townships were empowered to tax themselves to a certain amount, and to
manage the whole affair by means of their own "select men." But,
although this law has continued for 200 years, the people have always
done far more than it required. In Boston, for instance, the law
demands only 3,000 dollars a year, but not less than 60,000 dollars is
raised and applied! So that here we have a noble proof, not so much of
the effect of government interference, as of the efficiency of the
voluntary principle in providing education for the young. The people of
Massachusetts, and indeed of all the New England States, are doubtless
the best educated in the world. Not one in a thousand of those born
here grows up unable to read and write.
The calumniated "Pilgrims" were thus early attentive to the importance
of education; and their system had been in full operation for between
thirty and forty years, when, in 1670, Sir William Berkley, Governor of
Virginia, the stronghold of the Anglican Church, thus devoutly
addressed the "Lords of Plantations in England:"--"I thank God _there
are no free schools nor printing_, and I hope we shall not have them
these hundred years; for learning has brought _disobedience and heresy
and sects_ into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels
against the best government. God keep us from both!"
The system of Massachusetts may be regarded as a type of what prevails
in the six New England States, except Connecticut, where there is a
State fund of upwards of 2,000,000 dollars, yielding an annual dividend
of about 120,000 dollars for school purposes.
NEW YORK.--In this State a large fund for schools has been created by
the sale of public land. The proceeds of this fund are annually
distributed in such a way as to secure the raising by local efforts of
at least three times the amount for the same object. This fund is thus
used as a gentle stimulant to local exertions. The system described
will convey a notion of what exists in the _middle_ States.
Ohio.--In this and the Western States every township is divided into so
many sections of a mile square; and one of these sections, out of a
given number, is devoted to the maintenance of schools. As a township
increases in population, the reserved section advances in value. These
schools are not subject to any central control, but are under the
management of a committee chosen by the township.
Still education is not so general in all the States as might be wished.
Miss Beecher, the daughter of Dr. Beecher, having devoted to the
subject much time and talent, tells us that there are in the United
States "a million adults who cannot read and write, and more than two
millions of children utterly illiterate and entirely without schools!"
Of the children in this condition, 130,000 are in Ohio, and 100,000 in
Kentucky.
In the working of this system of education, the absence of a State
Church affords advantages not enjoyed in England. Of late, however, an
objection to the use of the Bible in these schools has been raised by
the Roman Catholics, and the question in some States has been fiercely
agitated. In the city of St. Louis the Bible has been excluded. In
Cincinnati the Catholics, failing to exclude it, have established
schools of their own.
This agitation is one of great interest. It leads thoughtful and devout
men to ask, whether, when the State, assuming to be the instructor of
its subjects, establishes schools, and puts Protestant Bibles, or any
other, or none into them _by law_, they have not thenceforth
Protestantism, Popery, or Infidelity so far _by law established_; and
whether it is not better that the State should restrict itself to its
proper function as the minister of justice, leaving secular
instruction, like religious, to the spontaneous resources of the
people.
To this, I think, it will come at last. The Common School economy is a
remnant of the old Church-and-State system, which has not been entirely
swept away. But for this impression I should feel some uneasiness, lest
it should prove the germ of a new order of things leading back to
State-Churchism. It appeared to me quite natural to say, "Here is a
State provision for schools,--why not have a similar provision for
churches? It works well for the one,--why not for the other? Is it not
as important that our churches should rely, not alone on the capricious
and scanty efforts of the voluntary principle, but also on the more
respectable and permanent support of the State, as it is that our
Common Schools should adopt this course?" To me it seemed that the
arguments which recommended the one supported the other; but when I
have mentioned to intelligent men the possibility, not to say
probability, of the one step leading to the other, they have invariably
been surprised at my apprehensions, and have assured me that nothing
was more unlikely to take place.
But, to show the jealousy with which on _other_ grounds the system
begins to be viewed, I will close by a short quotation from a writer in
the _New Englander_, a respectable _Quarterly_, to which I have before
referred. "It will, doubtless, be thought strange to say that the
systems of public common-school education now existing, and sought to
be established throughout our country, may yet, while Christians sleep,
become one of the greatest, if not _the_ greatest, antagonism in the
land to all evangelical instruction and piety. But how long before they
will be so,--when they shall have become the mere creatures of the
State, and, under the plea of no sectarianism, mere naturalism shall be
the substance of all the religious, and the basis of all the secular
teaching which they shall give? And let it not be forgotten that strong
currents of influence, in all parts of the country, acting in no chance
concert, are doing their utmost to bring about just this result."