The Easton, (Md.) Gazette, in treating of the importance of
Education, and the advantages, under a republican government,
of close application to study, concludes with the following
characteristic allusions:
Who was Mr. Wirt, the present Attorney General of the U. States? A
poor boy of our state; of the village of Bladensburgh.--What has
given him one of the first stations in the country, with a handsome
income? Good education, laborious study and application, and
consequent knowledge.
Who was William Pinkney? A poor boy of Annapolis. What has learning
made him? The first lawyer; the most celebrated advocate of our
country.
Who was James Monroe? The son of a bricklayer in the town of
Cambridge, in Dorset. Who is James Monroe? The President of these
United States.
* * * * *
Education is the solid granite pedestal of the column of his
fame, supporting a shaft of the most towering attitude, whose
Corinthian capital is high above the clouds. How emphatically, in
this instance, has wisdom, founded on good education, and matured
by intense study and application, proved herself to be power, with
station, and honours, and wealth, following in her train. Why
then should not a son of one of our bricklayers, or hatters, or
tailors, or cabinet makers, become a future President of the United
States?--The same path is open to them: true, it winds up the sides
of a steep and rugged mountain; and the elevated pinnacle is not
to be gained without setting out aright, with the earliest and
best discipline of good schools, and the severest and most immense
mental labour--but the prize is well worth the boldest, the highest
exertion.
Will it be said that Nature made these men of her best materials?
no such thing. Providence was bountiful to them; but Nature left
these diamonds as rough, as many of the pebbles now in the streets.
Instruction turned them; and education gave the high polish and the
point, which illumes and dazzles America, and throws their radiance
far into other countries. And have we not at this moment, genius and
talents in our Academy equal to Wirt's, and Pinkney's, and Monroe's?
Yes, without doubt, and among the sons of our mechanics too--and
would to Heaven I could fire their young bosoms with the noblest
ambition, without which they can never reach what they aim at.