Popular Education Part 10
"How do all other men out of the Protestant communion, Papists, Mohammedans, Jews, and Gentiles, reason and act in the education of their children? Do they discard their sacred books from the schools as too holy for common and familiar use? No. They understand the influence of such reading far too well, and are too strongly attached to their respective religions to exclude it. The Romanists, indeed, forbid the use of the Scriptures to the common people; but the Missal and the Breviary, which they hold to be quite as sacred, are their most familiar school-books. A large portion of the children's time is taken up with reading the lessons and reciting the prayers; and what are the effects?
Do they become disgusted with the Missal and Breviary by this daily familiarity? We all know the contrary. The very opposite effect is produced. It is astonishing to see with what tenacity children thus educated cling to the superst.i.tions and absurdities of their fathers; and it is because their religion is wrought into the very texture of their minds, in the schools as well as in the churches. Go to Turkey, to Persia, to all the lands scorched and blighted by the fiery train of the Crescent, and what school-books will you find but portions of the Koran?
Pa.s.s to Hindostan, and there you will find the Vedas and Shasters wherever any thing like popular education is attempted. Enter the great empire of China, and, according to the best information we can obtain, their sacred books are the school-books of that vast and teeming population. Inquire among the Jews, wherever in their various dispersions they have established schools, and what will you find but the Law and the Prophets, the Targums and the Talmud.
"Now when and where did ever Protestant children grow up with a greater reverence for the Bible, a stronger attachment to their religion, than Jewish, Mohammedan, and Pagan children cherish for their school-books, to the study of which they are almost exclusively confined, in every stage of their education? It is opposing theory, then, to great and undeniable facts, to say that using the Christian Scriptures in this manner would detract from their sacredness in the eyes of our children.
If this is ever the case, it must be where the teacher himself is a Gallio, and lacks those moral qualifications which are essential to his profession. Another objection which is sometimes brought against the use of the Bible is, that considerable portions of it--though all true, and important as a part of our great religious charter--are not suitable for common and promiscuous reading. My answer is, we do not suppose that any instructor would take all his cla.s.ses through the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. The genealogical tables, and some other things, he would omit of course, but would always find lessons enough to which the most fastidious could make no objection.
"The way is now prepared to take an affirmative att.i.tude, and offer some reasons in favor of using the Bible as a school-book. In the first place, _it is the cheapest school-book in the world_. It furnishes more reading for _fifty cents_ than can be obtained in common school-books for _two dollars_. This difference of cost is, to the poor, an important consideration. With large families on their hands, they often find it extremely difficult to meet the demands of teachers and committees for new books. Were the Scriptures generally introduced, they would take the place of many other reading-books which parents are now obliged to purchase at four-fold expense. This would be a cogent argument on the score of economy, even if the popular school-books of this year were sure of maintaining their ground the next. But so busy is the press in bringing forward new claimants to public favor, that they rapidly supplant each other, and thus the burden is greatly increased.
"In the next place, _the Bible furnishes a far greater variety of the finest reading-lessons than any other book whatever_. This is a point to which my attention has been turned for many years, and the conviction grows upon me continually. There is no book in which children a little advanced beyond the simplest monosyllabic lessons will learn to read faster, or more readily catch the proprieties of inflection, emphasis, and cadence, than the Bible. I would by no means put it into the hands of a child to spell out and blunder over the chapters before he has read any thing else. The word of G.o.d ought not to be so used by mere beginners. But it contains lessons adapted to all cla.s.ses of learners, after the first and simplest stage. Let any teacher who has never made the trial put a young cla.s.s into the first chapter of John, and he will be surprised to find how easy the reading is, and with what pleasure and manifest improvement they may be carried through the whole Gospel; and as few are too young to read with advantage in the Bible, so none are too old. It is known to every body, that the very best reading lessons in our most popular school-books for the higher cla.s.ses are taken from the Scriptures. Just open the Sacred Volume with reference to this single point, and turn over its thousand pages. As a history, to interest, instruct, and improve the youthful mind, what other book in the world can compare with it? Where else will you find such exquisitely finished pieces of biography? such poetry? such genuine and lofty eloquence? such rich and varied specimens of tenderness, pathos, beauty, and sublimity? I regret that I have not room for a few quotations. I can only refer, in very general terms, to the history of the creation; of Joseph and the forty years' wandering in the wilderness; to the book of Job; to the Psalms of David; to Isaiah; to the Gospels; and to the visions of John in the Isle of Patmos.
"Now if the primary qualities of a good school-book are to teach the art of reading, and to communicate instruction upon the most interesting and important subjects, I have no hesitation in saying that the Bible stands pre-eminently above every other. If I were again to become a primary instructor, or to teach the art of reading in any higher seminary than the common school-house, I would take the Bible in preference to any twenty 'Orators' or 'English Readers' that I have ever seen. Indeed, I would scarcely want any other. Milton and Shakspeare I would not reject, but I would do very well without them, for they are both surpa.s.sed by Isaiah and John. Let enlightened teachers, and members of any of the learned professions, read over aloud, in their best manner, such portions of Scripture as they may easily select, and see if they have ever found any thing better fitted to bring out and discipline the voice, and to express all the emotions in which the soul of true eloquence is bodied forth. Why do the masters of oratory, who charm great audiences with their recitations, take so many of their themes from the Bible? The reason is obvious. They can find none so well suited to their purpose. And why should not the common schools, in which are nurtured so many of the future orators, and rulers, and teachers of the land, have the advantage of the best of all reading-lessons? Moreover, since so much of the sense of Scripture depends upon the manner in which it is read, why should not the thousands of children be taught the art in school, who will never learn it at home? The more I study the Bible, the more does it appear to me to excel all other reading-books. You may go on improving indefinitely, without ever making yourself a perfect scriptural reader, just as you might, with all the help you can command, spend your whole life in the study of any one of its great truths without exhausting it. Let it not be said that we have but few instructors who are capable of entering into the spirit of the Sacred Volume, so as to teach their scholars to read it with propriety. Then let more be educated. It ought to be one of the daily exercises in our Normal Schools, and other seminaries for raising up competent teachers, to qualify them for this branch of instruction."
I remark again, that were the Bible made a school-book throughout the commonwealth and throughout the land, _an amount of scriptural knowledge would be insensibly treasured up, which would be of inestimable value in after life_. Every observing teacher must have been surprised to find how much the dullest scholar will learn by the ear, without seeming to pay any attention to what others are reading or reciting. The boy that sits half the time upon his little bench nodding or playing with his shoe-strings, will, in the course of a winter, commit whole pages and chapters to memory from the books he hears read, when you can hardly beat any thing into him by dint of the most diligent instruction.
Indeed, I have sometimes thought that children in our common schools learn more by the ear, without any effort, than by the study of their own cla.s.s-books; and I am quite sure this is the case with the most of the younger scholars. Let any book be read for a series of years in the same school, and half of the children will know most of it by heart.
Wherever there are free schools--and the free school system is now becoming extensively adopted in every part of the United States--the great ma.s.s of the children are kept at school from four or five years of age, to nine or ten, through the year; and in the winter season, from nine or ten to fifteen or sixteen. The average of time thus devoted to their education is from eight to ten years. Now let the Bible be read daily as a cla.s.s-book during all this time, in every school, and how much of it will, without effort, and without interfering in the least with other studies, be committed to memory. And who can estimate the value of such an acquisition? What pure morality; what maxims of supreme wisdom for guidance along the slippery paths of youth, and onward through every stage of life; what bright examples of early piety, and of its glorious rewards, even in the present world; what sublime revelations of the being and perfections of G.o.d; what incentives to love and serve him, and to discharge with fidelity all the duties which we owe to our fellow-men! and all these enforced by the highest sanctions of future accountability. Let any man tell, if he can, how much all this store of divine knowledge, thus insensibly acquired, would be worth to the millions of children who are growing up in these United States of America. They might not be at all sensible of its value at the time, but how happily and safely would it contribute to shape their future opinions and characters, both as men and as citizens.
Another cogent reason for using the Bible as a common school-book is, that _it is the firmest basis, and, indeed, the only sure basis of our free inst.i.tutions, and, as such, ought to be familiar to all the children in the state from their earliest years_. While it recognizes the existence of civil governments, and enjoins obedience to magistrates as ministers of G.o.d for the good of the people, it regards all men as free and equal, the children of one common Father, and ent.i.tled to the same civil and religious privileges. I do not believe that any people could ever be enslaved who should be thoroughly and universally educated in the principles of the Bible.
It was no less truly than eloquently said by Daniel Webster, in his Bunker Hill address, that "the American colonists brought with them from the Old World a full portion of all the riches of the past in science and art, and in morals, religion, and literature. The _Bible_ came with them. And it is not to be doubted that to the _free_ and _universal_ use of the Bible it is to be ascribed that in that age men were much indebted for right views of civil liberty. The Bible is a book of faith and a book of doctrine; but it is also a book which teaches man his individual responsibility, his own dignity, and equality with his fellow-men."
These sentiments of the great American statesman are worthy to be engraved in golden capitals upon the monument under whose shade they were uttered! Yes, it was the free and universal use of the Bible which made our Puritan fathers what they were; and it is because, in these degenerate times, mult.i.tudes of children will be taught to read it nowhere else, that I am so anxious to have it read as a school-book. One other, and the only additional reason which I shall suggest, is that, as the Bible is _infinitely the best_, so it is the only decidedly _religious book_ which can be introduced into our popular systems of early education. So jealous are the different sects and denominations of each other, that it would be hardly possible to write or compile a religious school-book with which all would be satisfied. But here is a book prepared to our hands, which we all receive as the inspired record of our faith, and as containing the purest morality that has ever been taught in this lower world. Episcopalians can not object to it, because they believe it teaches the doctrines and polity of their own church; and this is just what they want. Neither Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, nor any other denomination, can object to it for the same reason. Every denomination believes, so far as it differs from the rest, that the Bible is on its side, and, of course, that the more it is read by all, the better.
For me to object to having the Bible read as a common school-book on account of any doctrine which those who differ from me suppose it to teach, would be virtually to confess that I had not full confidence in my own creed, and was afraid it would not bear a scriptural test. It seems to me an infinite advantage, for which we are bound devoutly to thank the Author of all good, that he has given us a religious book of incomparable excellence, which we may fearlessly put into the hands of all the children in the state, with the a.s.surance that it is able to make them "wise unto salvation," and will certainly make them better children, better friends, and better members of society, so far as it influences them at all. But some persons who highly approve of daily scriptural reading in common schools are in favor of using _selections_ rather than the whole Bible. I should certainly prefer this, provided the selections are judiciously made, to excluding the Scriptures altogether; but I think there are weighty and obvious reasons why the _whole_ Bible should be taken rather than a part. The whole is cheaper than half would be in a separate volume; and when the whole is introduced, "without note or comment," there can be no possible ground for sectarian jealousy.
Doctors of divinity not only, but the most eminent statesmen in the country, hold the views here presented. The bold and n.o.ble stand taken by the Legislature of New York more than ten years ago (1838), has revived the hopes and infused fresh courage into the minds of those who believe that the safety and welfare of our country are essentially dependent on the prevalence of a "_religious_ morality and a _moral_ religion." The representatives of this great state, whose system of education is becoming increasingly an object of imitation in all the rest, at one and the same session doubled the amount of the public money for the purpose of improving the education given in the common schools--which, to the praise of that state, be it said, are _now free_--and in reply to the pet.i.tion of sundry persons, praying that all religious exercises and the use of the Bible might be prohibited in the public schools, decided by a vote of _one hundred and twenty-one_ to ONE! that the request of the pet.i.tioners be not granted. For the purpose of corroborating the doctrines of this volume, I will introduce a paragraph from the report of the Hon. Daniel D. Barnard on the occasion referred to, which was sustained by the n.o.ble, unequivocal, and almost unanimous testimony of the representatives of the most powerful member of the American states.
"Moral instruction is quite as important to the object had in view in popular education as intellectual instruction; it is indispensable to that object. But, to make instruction effective, it should be given according to the best code of morals known to the country and the age; and that code, it is universally conceded, is contained in the Bible.
Hence the Bible, as containing that code, so far from being arbitrarily excluded from our schools, ought to be in common use in them. Keeping all the while in view the object of popular education, the fitting of the people by _moral_ as well as by _intellectual_ discipline for self-government, no one can doubt that any system of instruction which overlooks the training and informing of the moral faculties must be wretchedly and fatally defective. Crime and intellectual cultivation merely, so far from being dissociated in history and statistics, are unhappily old acquaintances and tried friends. To neglect the moral powers in education is to educate not quite half the man. To cultivate the intellect only is to unhinge the mind and destroy the essential balance of the mental powers; it is to light up a recess only the better to see how dark it is. And if this is all that is done in popular education, then nothing, literally nothing, is done toward establishing popular virtue and forming a moral people."
This is but a specimen of an invaluable doc.u.ment, which does honor to the heart and head of him who penned it, and to the Legislature of the commonwealth by which it was adopted by almost unparalleled unanimity.
The Hon. Samuel Young, the eminently distinguished superintendent of common schools in the same state, in a report made in 1843, inculcates sentiments which so well accord with my own views of the importance of weaving scriptural reading into the very warp and woof of popular education, that I gladly add his testimony. "I regard the New Testament as in all respects a suitable book to be daily read in our common schools, and I earnestly recommend its general introduction for this purpose. As a mere reading-book, intended to convey a practical knowledge of the English language, it is one of the best text-books in use; but this, although of great use to the pupils, is of minor importance when the moral influences of the book are duly considered.
Education consists of something more than mere instruction. It is that training and discipline of all the faculties of the mind which shall symmetrically and harmoniously develop the future man for usefulness and for happiness in sustaining the various relations of life. It must be based upon knowledge and virtue; and its gradual advancement must be strictly subordinated to those cardinal and elementary principles of morality, which are nowhere so distinctly and beautifully inculcated as in that book from whence we all derive our common faith. The nursery and family fireside may accomplish much; the inst.i.tutions of religion may exert a pervading influence; but what is commenced in the hallowed sanctuary of the domestic circle, and periodically inculcated at the altar, must be daily and hourly recognized in the common schools, that it may exert an ever-present influence, enter into and form a part of every act of life, and become thoroughly incorporated with the rapidly expanding character. The same incomparable standard of moral virtue and excellence, which is expounded from the pulpit and the altar, and which is daily held up to the admiration and imitation of the family circle, should also be reverently kept before the mind and the heart in the daily exercises of the school."
I will add the testimony of another whom we all delight to honor. Never were sentiments uttered more worthy to be remembered and repeated through all generations, than those which fell from the Father of his Country in his Farewell Address to the American people. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.
The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked. Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if a sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that _morality_ can be maintained _without religion_. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." How n.o.ble, how elevated, how just these parting words.
Washington was an enlightened Christian patriot, as well as a great general and a wise statesman. The oracles which he consulted in all his perils, and in the perils of his country, were the oracles of G.o.d.[29]
No one of the fathers of the Revolution knew better than he did that religion rests upon the Bible as its main pillar, and that as a knowledge and belief of the Bible are essential to true religion, so they are to private and public morality. I can not doubt, says the venerable President of Amherst College, that could the greatest among the great men of his day add a codicil to his invaluable legacy, it would be, "Teach your children early to read and love the Bible. Teach them to read it in your families; teach them in your schools; teach them everywhere, that the first moral lesson indelibly enstamped upon their hearts may be to 'fear G.o.d and keep his commandments.' 'The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.'"
[29] John Quincy Adams, during his long and eventful life, was accustomed to read daily portions of the Scriptures in several languages.
How few are aware of what the Bible has done for mankind, and still less of what it is destined to accomplish. "Quench its light, and you blot out the brightest luminary from these lower heavens. You bring back 'chaos and old night' to reign over the earth, and leave man, with all his immortal energies and aspirations, to 'wander in the blackness of darkness forever.' It was by constantly reading it that our Puritan fathers imbibed that unconquerable love of civil and religious liberty which sustained them through all the 'perils of the sea and perils of the wilderness.' It was from the Bible they drew those free and admired principles of civil government that were so much in advance of the age in which they lived. It was this book by which they 'resolved to go till they could find some better rule.'"
The Bible has built all our churches, and colleges, and school-houses; it has built our hospitals and retreats for the insane, the deaf, and the blind; it has built the House of Refuge, the Sailors' Home, and the Home for the Friendless. To it we are indebted for our homes, for our property, and for all the safeguards of our domestic relations and happiness. It is under its broad shield that we lie down in safety, without bolts or bars to protect us. It has given us our free const.i.tutions of civil government, and with them all the statutes and ordinances of a great and independent people, whose territory extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is the industry, sobriety, and enterprise, which nothing but the Bible could ever inspire and sustain, that have dug our ca.n.a.ls, and built our thousand factories, and "clothed the hills with flocks, and covered over the valleys with corn;" that have laid down our railways and established telegraph lines, bringing the East into the neighborhood of the West, and enabling the North to hold converse with the South. The Bible has directly and indirectly done all this for us, and infinitely more. Let not, then, the book which has given to us sweet homes, and happy families, and systems of public instruction, and has thus const.i.tuted us a great and prosperous people--the book which diminishes our sorrows and multiplies our joys, and gives to those who obey its precepts a "hope big with immortality"--let not this book be excluded from the common schools of our country. In the name of patriotism, of philanthropy, and of our common Christianity, let me, in behalf of the millions of youth in our country who will otherwise remain ignorant of it, ask that, whatever else be excluded from our schools, there be retained in them this Book of books, the BIBLE.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE IMPORTANCE OF POPULAR EDUCATION.
Education, as the means of improving the mural and intellectual faculties, is, under all circ.u.mstances, a subject of the most imposing consideration. To rescue man from that state of degradation to which he is doomed unless redeemed by education; to unfold his physical, intellectual, and moral powers, and to fit him for those high destinies which his Creator has prepared for him, can not fail to excite the most ardent sensibility of the philosopher and philanthropist. A comparison of the savage that roams through the forest with the enlightened inhabitant of a civilized country would be a brief but impressive representation of the momentous importance of education.--_Report of School Commissioners, New York_, 1812.
He who has carefully perused the preceding chapters of this work is already aware that we regard the subject of popular education as one of paramount importance. The object of devoting a chapter to the special consideration of this subject at this time is, if possible, to remove from the mind any remaining doubts in relation to it. The reader will bear in mind that we regard education as having reference to the _whole man_--the body, the mind, and the heart; and that its object, and, when rightly directed, its effect, is to make him a complete creature after his kind. To his frame it should give vigor, activity, and beauty; to his intellect, power and thoughtfulness; and to his heart, virtue and felicity.
We shall be the better prepared to appreciate the importance and necessity of a judicious system of training and instruction if we consider that, in its absence, every individual will be educated by circ.u.mstances. Let it be borne in mind, then, that all the children in every community will be educated somewhere and somehow; and that it devolves upon citizens and parents to determine whether the children of the present generation shall receive their training in the _school-house_ or in the _streets_; and if in the former, whether in good or poor schools.
In the discharge of my official duties in this state, I had occasion to visit two counties in 1846 in which there were no organized common schools.[30] They were not, however, without places of instruction, for in the shire town of each of those counties there were a billiard-room, bar-rooms, and bowling-alleys. I was forcibly impressed with the remark of an Indian chief residing in one of those counties. As he was pa.s.sing along the streets one day, he discovered a second bowling-alley in process of erection. He paused, and, surveying it attentively, remarked to those at work upon it as follows: "You have here another long building going up rapidly; and," he added, "_is this the place where our children are to be educated?_" Such keen and well-merited rebuke rarely falls from human lips. Those two bowling-alleys, with their bars--indispensable appendages--were thronged from six o'clock in the morning until past midnight, six days in the week. They were, moreover, the very places where many of the youth of that village were receiving their education. And who were their teachers? Idlers, tipplers, gamblers, profane persons, Sabbath-breakers. Mark well this truth: _as is the teacher, so will be the school_. Those pupils will graduate, it may be, at our poor-houses, at our county jails, or at the state penitentiary. These debasing and corrupting appendages of civilization spent not all their influence upon the white man; and this is what gave pungency to the withering satire of the chief. They were at once working the ruin of the red man and of his pale neighbor.
[30] Common schools have since been organized in both of those counties.
The rudest nations or individuals can not be said to be wholly without education. Even the wildest savage is taught by his superiors not only the best mode of procuring food and shelter known to his race, but also the most adroit manner of defending himself and destroying his enemy.
But we use the term in a higher, broader, and more capacious sense, as having reference to the whole man, and the whole duration of his being.
A volume might be filled in stating and ill.u.s.trating the advantages of education. We have only s.p.a.ce to state and elucidate a few propositions.
We remark, then, first, that
EDUCATION DISSIPATES THE EVILS OF IGNORANCE.
Ignorance is one princ.i.p.al cause of the want of virtue, and of the immoralities which abound in the world. Were we to take a survey of the moral state of the world as delineated in the history of nations, or as depicted by modern voyagers and travelers, we should find abundant ill.u.s.tration of the truth of this remark. We should find, in almost every instance, that ignorance of the character of the true G.o.d, and false conceptions of the nature of the worship and service he requires, have led, not only to the most obscene practices and immoral abominations, but to the perpetration of the most horrid cruelties.--DR. d.i.c.k.
The evils of ignorance are not few in number nor small in magnitude. The whole history of the world justifies the statement that ignorant and uncultivated mind is p.r.o.ne to sensuality and cruelty. In what countries, let me ask, are the people most given to the lowest forms of animal gratification, and most regardless of the lives and happiness of others?
Is it not in pagan lands, over which moral and intellectual darkness broods, and where men are vile without shame, and cruel without remorse?
And if from pagan we pa.s.s to Christian countries, we shall find that those in which education is least prevalent are the very ones in which there is the most immorality, and the greatest indifference to the sufferings of animated and sentient beings. Spain--in which, until recently, there was but one newspaper printed, and in which only about one in thirty five of the people are instructed in schools--has a population about equal to that of England and Wales. Popular education in the latter countries, although much behind several of the other European states, is still greatly in advance of what it is in Spain, and there is an equally marked difference in the state of morals in the people of these countries. In England and Wales the whole number of convictions for murder in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-six was _thirteen_, and the number convicted for wounding, etc., with intent to kill, was _fourteen_; while in Spain, the number convicted during the same year was, for murder, _twelve hundred and thirty-three_! and for maiming with intent to kill, _seventeen hundred and seventy-three_! or a more than one hundred fold greater number than in the former countries.
Facts like these speak volumes in favor of the elevating influences of popular education, while they show most conclusively the low and degraded condition to which people will sink in countries in which education is neglected.
Spain affords an apt ill.u.s.tration of the truth of the statement just made, that ignorant and uncultivated people are p.r.o.ne to sensuality and cruelty. Scenes of cruelty and blood const.i.tute the favorite amus.e.m.e.nt of the Spaniards, their greatest delight being in bull-fights. An eye-witness describes the manner in which they conduct themselves during these appalling scenes in the following language. "The intense interest which they feel in this game is visible throughout, and often loudly expressed. An astounding shout always accompanies a critical moment.
Whether it be the _bull_ or _man_ who is in danger, their joy is excessive; but their greatest sympathy is given to the feats of the BULL! If the picador receives the bull gallantly and forces him to retreat, or if the matadore courageously faces and wounds the bull, they applaud these acts of science and valor; but if the bull overthrow the horse and his rider, or if the matadore miss his aim and the bull seems ready to gore him, their delight knows no bounds. And it is certainly a fine spectacle to see thousands of spectators rise simultaneously, as they always do when the interest is intense. The greatest and most crowded theater in Europe presents nothing half so imposing as this. But how barbarous, how brutal is the whole exhibition! Could an English audience witness the scenes that are repeated every week in Madrid, a universal burst of '_shame_!' would follow the spectacle of a horse gored and bleeding, and actually treading upon his own entrails while he gallops round the arena. Even the appearance of the goaded bull could not be borne, panting, covered with wounds and blood, lacerated by darts, and yet brave and resolute to the end.
"The spectacle continued two hours and a half, and during that time there were seven bulls killed and six horses. When the last bull was dispatched, the people immediately rushed into the arena, and the carca.s.s was dragged out amid the most deafening shouts."--_Spain in 1830_, vol. i., p. 191.
The same writer, after describing another fight, in which one bull had killed three horses and one man, and remained master of the arena, remarks, that "this was a time to observe the character of the people.
When the unfortunate picador was killed, in place of a general exclamation of horror and loud expressions of pity, the universal cry was 'Que es bravo ese toro! ('Ah, the admirable bull!') The whole scene produced the most unbounded delight; the greater the horror, the greater was the shouting, and the more vehement the expressions of satisfaction.
I did not perceive a single female avert her head or betray the slightest symptom of wounded feeling."--Vol. i., p. 195.
A correct system of public instruction develops a character widely different from that here brought to light. Instead of a love for vicious excitement, it cultivates a taste for simple and innocent pleasures, and gives to its subjects a command over their pa.s.sions, and a disposition habitually to control them. It acquaints them with their duty, and enables them to find their highest pleasure in its discharge. They order their pursuits and choose their employments with reference to their own advantage, it is true; but still, a higher, and the controlling motive with them is, the promotion of the best good of the community in which they live. In short, their supreme desire is to co-operate with the beneficent Creator in advancing the permanent interests of the whole human family; in themselves obeying, and leading others to obey, all the laws which G.o.d has ordained for the government and well-being of his creatures.
Education, we said, dissipates the evils of ignorance. But in this country we hardly know what popular ignorance is. The most illiterate among us have derived many and inestimable advantages from our systems of public instruction. Occasionally persons are found among us who can neither read nor write. But even such persons insensibly imbibe ideas and moral influences from the more cultivated society about them which, in countries less favored, are denied to mult.i.tudes. Individuals who have had no early advantages for learning, who have never even entered a school-house, but have grown up amid a generally intelligent population, trained by the inst.i.tutions established by our fathers, have in many instances acquired a mental character and influence which, but for these fortuitous circ.u.mstances, they could not have attained. The very excellence of our systems of education in many states of the Union, and the vital and pervading influence of the schools upon the public mind, reaching as they do, and improving even those that remain ignorant of letters, do not allow us to see the full extent of our obligation to them. This remark applies to all civilized countries where any systems of general education are adopted, but perhaps not to so great an extent in any other country as in our own.
The evils which flow from ignorance are deplorable enough in the case of individuals, although, as we have seen, the disastrous consequences are limited in the case of those who live surrounded by an intelligent community. But the general ignorance of large numbers and entire cla.s.ses of men, unreached by the elevating influence of the educated, acting under the unchastened stimulus of the pa.s.sions, and excited by the various causes of discontent which are constantly occurring in the progress of human affairs, is not unfrequently productive of scenes, the contemplation of which makes humanity shudder. The following extract from a foreign journal affords a pertinent ill.u.s.tration of the evils which flow from popular ignorance. It relates to the outrages committed by the peasantry in a part of Hungary in consequence of the ravages of the cholera in that region.