Part 1 (1/2)
An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance
by John Foster
”A Work, which, popular and admired as it confessedly is, has never met with the thousandth part of the attention which it deserves It appears to me that we are now at a crisis in the state of our country, and of the world, which renders the reasonings and exhortations of that eloquent production applicable and urgent beyond all power of mine to express”
Dr J Pye Smith
Advertisement
If the circumstance of a manner of introduction somewhat different from ould be expected in a composition of the essay class orth a very feords of explanation, it rown out of the topics of a discourse, delivered at a public anniversary n School Society
When it was thought, a good while after that occasion, that a ht be un in the for with a sentence froeneral indication to the subject But after so like a comprehensive view of that subject would be incompatible with the proper li, however, the forht be excused for leaving some traces of that character to reical senti repeatedly to the sentence fro the use of the plural pronoun, so cootisn and course of observations, the essay retains the character of the original discourse, which was, in accordance to the presurave assembly, an attempt to display the importance of the education of the people in reference, ious interests There are special relations in which their ignorance or cultivation are of great consequence to the welfare of the community Soislator, and to the political econonorance in the lower orders is beheld the cause of their vice, irreligion, and consequent misery, that the subject is attempted, imperfectly and soes
Nor was it within the writer's design to suggest any particular plans, regulations, or instrumental expedients, in proun, for raising these classes froradation His part has been to make such a pronorance, as shall prove it an aggravated national guilt to allow another generation to grow up to the same condition as the present and the past In the course of atte the absurdity of those who are hostile to the mental improvement of the people If any one should say that this is a one by, he nificant rank in society, ould from their own consciousness smile at the simplicity hich he can so easily shape men's opinions and dispositions to his mind whether they will or not He must have been the most charitable or the most obtuse of observers
It is feared the readers of the following essay will find soement To the candor of those who are practised in literary work it would be an admissible plea, that when, in a preparation to meet a particular occasion for which but little time has been allowed, a series of topics and observations has been hastily sketched out, it is far from easy to throw them afterwards into a different order The author has to bespeak indulgence also, here and there, to so too like repetition If he qualifies the tered, it is because he thinks that, though there be a recurrence of similarities, a mere bare iteration is avoided, by means of a diversity and addition of the matter of illustration and enforcement
Any benevolent writer on the subject would wish he could treat it without such frequent use of the phrases, ”lower orders,” ”subordinate classes,”
”inferior portion of society,” and other expressions of the same kind; because they have an invidious sound, and have indeed very often been used in conte; that they are enation; and that he would like better to eracious ones that did not require an affected circumlocution
In several parts of the essay, there will be found a language of emphatic censure on that conduct of states, that predominant spirit and system in the administration of the affairs of nations, by which the people have been consigned to such a deplorable condition of intellectual and consequentlyto immensity have been lavished on objects of vanity and a that such observations can require any apology, the writer thinks it is high tiious iainst that policy of the states denoh age after age, found every conceivable thing necessary to be done, at all costs and hazards, rather than to enlighten, refor candishonesty, in those ould assume to dictate to such an advocate and to censure him, than that sort of doctrine which tells him that it is beside his business, and out of his sphere, as a Christian moralist, to animadvert on the conduct of national authorities, when he sees the that which is the s to be done for the people over who what is in substance and effect the reverse; and doing it on that great scale, which contrasts so fearfully with the small one, on which the individuals who deplore such perversion of power are confined to attempt a remedy of the consequences
This interdiction comes with its worst appearance when it is put forth in terion; a reverence which cannot endure that so holy a thing should be defiled, by being brought in any contact with such a subject as the disastrous effect of bad government, on the intellectual and moral state of the people The advocate of schemes for the improveround, his strongest ground, on religion, for enforcing on _individuals_ the duty of proion he may press on their consciences with respect to the application of their property and influence; and he e in censure of their negligence, their insensibility to their accountableness, and their lavish expenditures foreign to the most Important uses: in all this he does well But the instant he begins to make the like judicial application of its laws to the public conduct of the governing authorities, that instant he debases Christianity to politics, most likely to party-politics; and a pious horror is affected at the profanation Christianity is to be honored somewhat after the same manner as the Lama of Thibet It is to stay in its tee duly preserved within its precincts, but to be _exenizance of great public affairs, even in the points where they most interfere with or involve its interests It could show, perhaps, in what manner the administration of those affairs injures these interests; but it would degrade its sacred character by talking of any such matter But Christianity must have leave to decline the sinister compliment of such pretended anxiety to preserve it immaculate As to its sacred character, it can _venture that,_ on the strength of its intrinsic quality and of its own guardianshi+p, while, regardless of the limits thus attempted in mock reverence to be prescribed, it steps in a censorial capacity on ill be called a political ground, so far as to take account of what concern has been shown, or what means have been left disposable, for operations to prorand essentials of hurasped and expended the strength of the co that it cannot, without violating its consecrated character, go into the exercise of this judicial office And as to its _right_ to do so,--either it has a right to take cognizance now of the manner in which the spirit and ulators bear upon the ht forward as the supres and those ious topics, which had been pronounced on the Essay (first edit) by a Review ious and literary, was the immediate cause that proeneral reference to a hypocritical cantbefore That it _was_ hypocritical appeared plainly enough from the circuion, by i it with political affairs, sious ely as he pleased with the _proper sort_ of political sentiht]
It is now more than twenty years since a national plan of education for the inferior classes, was brought forward by Mr (now Lord) Brougham The announcement of such a scheht by those who had so long deplored the condition of those classes But when it was foranization appeared so defective in liberal comprehension, so invidiously restricted and accommodated to the prejudices and dereat division, the one in which zeal and exertions for the education of the people had been er conspicuous, was constrained to ainst it And at the same time it was understood, that the party in whose favor it had been so inequitably constructed, were displeased at even the very small reserve it made from their round, to the extreret of the earnest friends of popular reforinal proislative consideration of the subject went into abeyance; and has so reh an interval in which far land alone, of the children ere at that tieneral scherown up to animal maturity, destitute of all that can, in any decent sense of the word, be called education Think of the difference between their state as it is, and what it ht have been if there had at that tih to enact and carry into effect a coravated the pressure hich the subject returns upon us It is forcing itself on attention with a demand as pereainst the peril of inundation There are no indications to uine as to the disposition of the most influential classes; but it were little less than infatuation not to see the necessity of so, to establish a fortified line between us and--not national dishonor; _that_ is flagrantly upon us, but--the destruction of national safety
As to national dishonor, by comparison hat may be seen elsewhere, it is hardly possible for a patriot to feel athe description, as recently given by M Cousin, of the state of education in the Prussian donorance and barbaris to hihtly name it,) the information, the sense of decorum, the fitness for rational converse, which hout the general youthful character under such a discipline, and then changing his viehat may be seen all over his own country--an incalculable and ever-increasing tribe of hu up in a condition to shohat a wretched and offensive thing is human nature left to itself
When neither opprobrium, nor prospective policy, nor sense of duty, can constrain the attention of the officially and virtually ruling part of society to an important national interest, it is sure to co and imperative manifestation The present and very recent tinorant populace are capable of believing, and of being successfully instigated to perpetrate It is not to be pretended that such ignorance, and such liabilities to mischief, exist only in particular spots of the land, as if the local outbreaks wereout of co the mass Within but very few years of the present date, we have had the spectacle of land, yielding an absolute credence to thepublic questions and measures, imposed on them by dishonest artifice, and what may be called moral incendiarism; and these delusions of a nature to excite the passions of the multitude to crime It is difficult to believe that all this can be seen without serious apprehension, by those who sustain the pri measures to secure the national _safety_, (that we may take the lowest term of national welfare;) and that they can be content to rest that security on expedients which, in keeping the people in order, lorious change in our history, if we htened, virtuous, and energetic spirits, not only to the bare effect of withstanding disorder and danger, but in a resolute, invincible deter to the world, far in the nineteenth century, a rude, unprincipled, semi-barbarous populace
Thus far the hopes which had flattered us with such a change, as a consequence of a political movement so considerable as to be denorievously disappointed We , to see whether a professed concern for popular education will result in any effective scheme That profession has hitherto been followed up with so little appearance of earnest conviction, or of high and co the majority of the influential persons who, perhaps for decorum's sake, have made it, as to leave cause for apprehension that, if any such scheme were to be proposed, it would be in the first instance very limited in its coardly in its pecuniary appointating the condition of the people, and are unaware of their deplorable destitution of all mental cultivation; and many have formed but a low and indistinct estimate of the kind and measure of cultivation desirable to be imparted Very slowly does the conviction or the desirethe favorites of fortune, that the portion of huhest mental condition compatible with the limitation and duties of their subordinate allotenuine zeal for the object would find difficulties in the way, of aexertion of poere they only those opposed by the degraded condition of the people themselves; by the utter carelessness of one part, and the intractableness of another Nor is it to be denied, that the differences of religious opinion, an, must create considerable difficulty as to the ious instruction, to form a part of a comprehensive system But we are told, besides, of we know not what obstruction to be encountered froed and peculiar interests, the jealous pride of venerable institutions, assuhts of station and rank, punctilios of precedence, the tenacity of parties who find their advantage in things as they are, and so forth; all to be deferentially consulted
If this mean that the old horror of a bold experi in this so urgent affair is to be ventured but in a creeping inch-by-inch norance, with all its attendant vices, is to be allowed a very leisurely retreat, retaining its hold on a large portion of the present and following generations of the children, and therefore the adults; that their condition and fate shall be norant and often worthless parents; that there shall be no considerable positive exaction of local provision for the institution, or of attendance of those who should be benefited by it; that, in short, there shall not be a coan, the governree coercive measures, to abate as speedily as possible the national nuisance and calamity of such a state of the juvenile faculties and habits as we see glaring around us; and all this because hoe is dee, venerable institutions, pride of station, jealousy of the well-endowed, and the like:--if this be what is atives, that would thus interfere to render feeble, partial, and slow, any projected exertion to rescue the nation fro theto be extirpated
How readily will the proudest descend to the plea of i which they care not for or dislike, but to which, at the same time, it would be disreputable to avow any other than the most favorable sentiret that the thing is impracticable Impracticable--and does the case come at last to be this, that froh and the untowardness of the low, the obstinacy of prejudice, and the rashness of innovation, the dissensions an and the discountenance of those who are no better than ene of every _other_ kind of power, absolutely _cannot_ execute a schereat Authority on this subject has pronounced ”the worst educated nation in Europe?” Then let it subrandeur, to stand in derision and proverb on the face of the earth
With a view to a wider circulation than that which is limited by the price of the volu, it has been deemed advisable to publish a cheap edition of the ”Essay on Popular Ignorance” It is not in any degree an abridghtest consequence, being in a few places where changes have been rendered necessary by the subsequent conduct of our national authorities, as affecting our speculations and prospects in relation to general education; while, on the other hand, there are nu out the ideas ht of discrimination or exception In some instances the connection and dependence of the series of thoughts have been rendered more obvious, and the sentences reduced to a somewhat more simple and compact construction; but the principal object in this _final revised_ has been literary correction, without any e