Part 8 (1/2)

It was not possible to pursue the long course of these observations so nearly to the conclusion, without being reain of e have adverted to before, that there will be persons ready to iance to our expectations of the result of such an order of means and exertions, for the improvement of the education andto work When the means are of so little splendid a quality, it will be said, by what inflation of fancy is their power admeasured to such effects?

And what _is_ it, then, and how much, that is expected as the result, by the zealous advocates of schools, and the whole order of expedients, for the instruction of that part of the rising generation till lately so neglected? Are they heard e, or true notions of things, to youthful minds, will _infallibly_ ensure their virtue and happiness? They are not quite so new to the world, to experimental labor in the business of tuition, or to self-observation

Their vigilance would hardly overlook such a circuree of assurance hich the effects norance on the one hand, and of knowledge on the other There is very nearly an absolute certainty of success in the abonds, and ruffians You may safely leave it to the coroithout discipline, destitute therefore of salutary informent, or any conscience but ill shape itself to whatever they like, serving in the manner of some vile friar pander in the old plays,--and no one takes any credit for foresight in saying they will be a noxious burden on the earth; except indeed in those tracts of it where they see ainst the wolves and bears of the wilderness When they infest what should be a civilized and Christianized part of the world, the philanthropist is soe, the sentiment which tempts him to co their nunorance are certain, unless ale are of diffident and restricted calculation; unless we could es, and suppress the evidence of present experience, that men may see and approve the better, and yet follow the worse It is the hapless predicament of our nature, that the noblest of its powers, the understanding, has buthold on the others, which is essential to the good order of the soul Our constitution is like a machine in which there is a constant liability of the secondary wheels to be thrown out of the catch and grapple of the ht to be subordinate and obedient to the understanding, are not left to stand still when detached fro activity of their own, from the impulse of other principles: indeed, it is this ihtful to look at the evidence fro in the perversity which will set the judg the very ti to a coht The assertions of those who are deter direction of the passions and will in ross assuainst an infinite crowd of facts pressing round with their evidence This evidence is offered bytheir conviction of the evil quality and fatal consequences, of courses which they are soon afterwards seen pursuing, and without the se of opinion; by the sa the sa terms of self-reproach, in the checks and pauses of their career; and by , in bitter regret, the acknowledg when they knew better And this assuainst such evidence, is to be maintained for no better reason, that appears, than a wilful determination that human nature cannot, must not, shall not, be so absurd and depraved as to be capable of suchthe suile theood opinion; as if it could be cajoled by their flattery to assu it; as if it had the complaisance to check one bad propensity, to save the contradicted and exposed to ridicule for speaking of it with indulgence or respect; as if it stayed or cared to thank the to make out a plausible extenuation It has, and keeps, and shows its character, in perfect indifference to the puzzled efforts of its apologists to reduce itsBut, as for understanding--it should be ti, in other words, that there is actually as e of its principles and laws We should rather have sure is, the reduction of a fifth or tenth part of it to practice would land and Europe

The persons, therefore, whose zeal is coe in the prosecution of plans for the extension of education, proceed on a calculation of an effect more limited, in apparent proportion to the means, and with less certainty of even that le instance, than they would have been justified in anticipating in many other departments of operation They would, for exa to cultivate any tract of waste land, to reclai, or to render mechanical forces available in an untried mode of application; or, inart as applied to a diseased body They must needs be ood, on a moral nature whose corruption would yield an ene for evil In colad if they e of the respective probabilities

That is to say, let a man, if such there be, who could be pleased with the depravity and e too, of their moral constitution, and a veteran observer of their conduct,--let him survey with the look of an evil spirit a hundred children in one of the benevolent schools, and indulge hith of what he knows of huree, in which these children will, in subsequent life, exemplify the _failure_ of what is done for their wisdom and welfare;--let him make his calculation, and, we say, there may be tilad to transfer the quantity of probability from his side to theirs; would feel they should be happy if the proportion in which they fear heon evil fros under discipline, were, instead, the proportion in which it is rational to reckon on good froood,” ht be their involuntary apostrophe, in the sense of wishi+ng to possess the stronger power, transmuted to the better quality

But we shall knohere to stop in the course of observations of this darkening color: and shall take off the point of the derider's taunt, just forthco, in effect, all that we have been so laboriously urging about the vast benefit of knowledge to the people

It was proper to show, that the prosecutors of these designs are not suffering themselves to be duped out of a perception of what there is, in the nature of the youthful subjects, to counteract the intention of the discipline, and with too certain a power to limit its efficacy to a very partial ht fairly be required to prove they are not unknowing enthusiasts; but then, in keeping clear of the vain extravagances of expectation, they are not to surrender their confidence that soreat and important can be done; it should be possible for a ravitate into a state of feeling as if they thought the understanding and the moral powers are but casually associated in the ht, so to speak, never be heard of by the others; as if these subordinates had just one sole principle of action--that of disobeying their chief, so that it could be of no use to appeal to thethe conduct of his inmates; as if, therefore, _all_ presuround of confidence in the efficacy of popular instruction, ht not indeed be amiss for them to be _told_ that the case is so, by those ould desire, from whatever ns For so downright a blow at the vital principle of their favorite object would but serve to provoke them to ascertain more definitely what there really is for them to found their schemes and hopes upon, and therefore to verify to the, in assurance that the labor will be far from wholly lost And for this assurance it is, at the very lowest, self-evident, that there is at any rate such an efficacy in cultivation, as to give a certainty that a well-cultivated people _cannot_ renorant one--or anywhere near it None of those even that value such designs the least, ever pretend to foresee, in the event of their being carried into effect, an undiminished prevalence of rudeness and brutality of ht in spectacles and amusements of cruelty, of noisy revelry, of sottish inteard of character It is not pretended to be foreseen, that the poorer classes will then continue to display sotheir teravated the calamities of the present times It is not predicted that a universal school-discipline will bring up several lect, and many of them in an iion The result will at all hazards, by every one's acknowledgment, be _the contrary of this_

But more specifically:--The promoters of the plans of popular education see a ained in the very outset, in the obvious fact, that in their schools a very large portion of time is employed well, that otherould infallibly be employed ill Let any one introduce himself into one of these places of concourse, where there has been tiee, in patronizing and judicial state, as if to demand the respectful looks of the whole tribe from their attention to their printed rudilide in as a quiet observer, just to survey at his leisure the character and operations of the scene Undoubtedly he ns of inattention, weariness or vacancy, not to say of perverseness Even these individuals, however, are out of the way of practical harm; and at the same ti the duty of directing their best attention to son to their wild a a rather protracted effort in one _ He will perceive in many the unequivocal indications of a serious and earnest effort ns and implements, a com from the mere animal state to tread in the precincts of an intellectual econoht and truth, in which they are to live forever; and never, in all futurity, will they have to regret, for itself, [Footnote: _For itself_--a phrase of qualification inserted to meed the captious remark, that there have been instances of bad men, under the reproach of conscience of the dread of consequences, expressing a regret that they had ever been well instructed, since this was an aggravation of their guilt, and perhaps had subserved their evil propensities with the more effectual means and ability] _this_ period and part of their eulated actions of the mind, how many just ideas distinctly ad of the day's exercise, (and ahest interest,) there will have been by the ti, and leaves silence within these walls

He will not indeed grow ros partake; knows therefore that the desired results of this process will but partially follow; but still rejoices to think those partial results which will most certainly folloill be worth incomparably more than all they will have cost to the learners, or the teachers, or the patrons

Now let hireatest part of this nu the same hours, whether of the Sabbath or other days, but for such a provision of means for their instruction And, for the contrast, he has only to leave the school, and walk a hborhood, in which it will be very wonderful, (we land,) if he shall not, in a populous district, especially near a great town, and on a fine day, ling or in knots, in the activity of mischief and nuisance, or at least the full cry of vile and profane language; with here and there, as a lord a fast into an insolent adult blackguard

He may make the comparison, quite sure that such as they are, and so employed, would many now under the salutary discipline of yonder school have been, but for its institution But the two classes so beheld in contrast,to two different nations? Do they not see into two extremely different orders of character? Do they not even see for different worlds in the final distribution?

The friends of these designs for a general and highly improved education,to therounds of their assurance of happy consequences A number of ideas, the ht, or imparted to men from the Supreme Mind, will be so communicated and impressed in these institutions, that it is absolutely certain they will be fixed irrevocably in the minds of the pupils And in the case of many, if not the majority of these destined adventurers into the temptations of life, these important ideas, thus inserted deep in their souls, will distinctly present thement and conscience an incalculable number of times What a number, if the sum of all these reminiscences, in all the minds now assembled in a numerous school, could be conjectured! But if one in a hundred of these recollections, if one in a thousand, shall be efficacious, who can co from the instruction which shall have so enforced and fixed these ideas that they shall inevitably be thus recollected? And is it altogether out of reason to hope that the desired efficacy will, far oftener than once in a thousand tiain of a solemn idea to the view of the mind! Is still less than _this_ to be predicted for our unhappy nature, while, however fallen, it is not abandoned by the care of its Creator!

The institutions theradually improve, in both the method and the coorous mechanism, and a more decidedly intellectual character In this latter respect, it is but comparatively of late years that schools for the inferior classes have ventured anything beyond the hued knowledge--elerade in society--were ter in vain There would have been an offensive sound in such phrases, as see to betray somewhat of the impertinence of a _disposition_, (for the idea of the _practicability_ of any such invasion would have been scorned,) to encroach on a ground exclusively appropriate to the superior orders Schools for the poor were to be as little as possible scholastic

They were to be kept down to the lowest level of the workshop, excepting perhaps in one particular--that of working hard: for the scholars were to throw ti beyond the merest rudiments The advocates and the petitioners for aid of such schools, were to avow and plead how little it was that they pretended or presuin or end with saying, that they taught _only_ reading and writing; or if it could not be denied that there was to be sorammar,--we may safely appeal to some of the veterans of these pleaders, whether they did not, thirty or forty years since, bring out this addition with the y It is a prominent characteristic of that happy revolution we have spoken of as in commence up

The theory of the subject is loosening into enlargeardly restriction on the extent of the cultivation, proper to be attempted in schools for the inferiors of the co in nu their quality and efficacy to the proof, as they grow to o forth to act their part in society And there can be no doubt, that while too many of them may be enius of the corrupt nature, combined with the infection of a bad world, resists the better influences of instruction, and e, be carried doards the old debasement, a very considerable proportion will take and perround They will have beco repulsion to that coarse vulgar that will be sure to continue in existence, in this country, long enough to be a trial of the moral taste of this better cultivated race It will be seen that they cannot associate with it by choice, and in the spirit of companionshi+p And while they are thus withheld on their part, fro, it may be hoped that in certain better disposed parts of that vulgar, thereprinciple into an iround There will be nu it who cannot be so entirely insensate or perverse, as to look with carelessness at the advantages obtained through the sole medium of personal improvement, by those who had otherwise been exactly on the same level of low resources and estimation as themselves The effect of this view on pride, in some, and on better propensities, it may be hoped, in others, will be to excite them to make their way upward to a coreater folly than to come doard to them And ill presume a friendly disposition in her standing, to meet such aspirers and help them to ascend

And while they will thus draard the less immovable and hopeless part of the mass below them, they will themselves, on the other hand, be placed, by the respectability of their understanding and her cultivation of the classes above thee, as we have taken a fore, that is to say, if the cultivation aenerally of such a quality and rees nearer to theh the effect of their exae, and propriety of conduct For it were somewhat tooof course that the people would always perceive such intellectual accomplishments as would keep them modest or humble in their estimate of their own, and such liberal spirit and manners as would at once command their respect and conduce to their refinement, when they made any approach to a communication with the classes superior in possessions and station If this _ of course, and if therefore it ht have been confidently reckoned on, that theof the people would receive from the ranks above them a salutary influence, si they will thear mass below them, there had been a happy omen for the community; and if it raceful deficiencies of the upper classes pleaded as an arguradation? Must thethe mud at the bottom of the upward slope, because their betters will not be at the cost of her terraced road across it than that they are noalking on?

But it would be an admirable turn to her And it is an ie likely to accrue fro attainments would compel not a few of their superiors to look to the state of their ownthat _this_, at last, was becoround on which, in no small part, their precedence was to be , that they should find themselves thus incommodiously pressed upon by the only circumstance, perhaps, that could make thele one to which alone they had hitherto attached ideas of disgrace; and should be forced to preserve that ascendency for which wealth and station would for, thinking, and general self-discipline And would it be a worthy sacrifice, that to spare so or pro ecclesiastics, such an afflictive necessity, the actual tillers of the ground, and the workers in manufacture and norance?

It is very possible thisof a necessity or a danger to these privileged persons, which it is thought they er (naoodin the course of nature to succeed them in the same rank, will find that its relative consequence cannot be sustained but at a very considerably higher pitch of es than the following:--Allow us first to take it for granted, that it is not a very protracted length of time that is to pass away before the case coe proportion of the children of the lower classes are trained, through a course of assiduous instruction and exercise in thea series of years, in schools which everything possible is done to render efficient Then, if we include in one computation all the time they will have spent in real mental effort and acquirement there, and all those pieces and intervals of time which we may reasonably hope that many of them will ireat number of thee, many thousands of hours more than people in their condition have heretofore done, in a way the reatly further on in whatever of ience is to bear in society And howthe natural capacities of these inferior classes, or the perceptions of the higher, not to foresee as a consequence, that these latter will find their relative situation greatly altered, with respect to the e and mental power requisite as one most essential constituent of their superiority, in order to coned deference of their inferiors?

Our strenuous pro theto foresee, that when schools, of that coanization which they are, we hope, gradually to attain, shall have becoorously seconded by all those auxiliary expedients for popular instruction which are also in progress, a very pleasing modification will becoht so express it, of the people's ordinary e appointed, for the most part, to the same occupations to which they would have been destined had they grown up in utter ignorance and vulgarity, are expected to give evidence that the meanness, the debasement almost, which had characterized many of those occupations in the view of the more refined classes, was in truth the debases; which will come to be in more honorable estimation as associated with the sense, decorum, and self-respect of the performers, than they hile blended and polluted with all the low habits, rossness And besides, there is the consideration of the different degrees of merit in the performance itself; and ill be the persons most likely to excel, in the many branches of work better done in proportion to the degree of intelligence directed upon theain, ill be e ment and discretion, and where the value is felt, (often vexatiously felt froht?

Such as these are aht say infallibly, calculated upon Our philanthropists are confident in foreseeing also, that verypersons will be valuable co-operators with all who norance from which themselves have been so happily saved; will exert an influence, by their exaainst vice and folly in their vicinity; and will be useful advisers of their neighbors in their perplexities, and sometimes moderators in their discords It is predicted, with a confidence so rounds of probability, as hardly to need the instances already afforded in various parts of the country to confirm it, that here and there one of the well-instructed humbler class will become a competent and useful public teacher of the most ihtful assurance, that great nuuardianshi+p which will take the charge of their youthful h life and at its conclusion, of the power and felicity of religion

Here we can suppose it not improbable that some one may, in pointed terms, put the question,--Do you then, at last, mean to affirm that you can, by the proposed course, by any course, of discipline, absolutely secure that effectual operation and ascendency of religion in the ht condition toward God, and in a state of fitness for passing, without fear or danger, into the scenes of its future endless existence?

We think the cautious li forth our expectations, ht preclude such a question But let it be asked, since there can be no difficulty to reply We do _not_ affirm that any form of discipline, the wisest and best in the power of the wisest and best men to apply, is competent of itself thus to subject the ion On the contrary, we believe that grand effect can be acco, operating by the ed system of instruction, or, if he pleases, independently of the, that the application of these human means will, in a multitude of instances, be efficacious to that most happy end

This certainty arises froeneral considerations The first is, that the whole systehty to be eion sole it on thereat effect which secures their final felicity; though to what extent in point of nuents They are perfectly certain, in e the appointed expedients in prosecution of the work, that they th of a positive relation subsisting between those means and the results to be realized, in what instances, in what n Power The appointment cannot be one of mere exercise for the faculties and submissive obedience of those who are suly, there are in the divine revelation veryassurances, that their exertions shall certainly be in a measure effectual to the proposed end And if these assurances are enerally, that is, on iving special encourage minds, before they can be preoccupied and hardened by the depravities of the world There is plainly the more hope for the efficacy of those exertions the less there is to frustrate them But besides, the authority itself, which has assured a enerally, has th the pro rays of hope which have in ten thousand instances anience of pious parents, and the other benevolent instructors of children

There is also palpable matter of fact to the point, that an education which combines the discipline of the conscience and the intellectual faculty will be rendered, in ious character This obvious fact is, that a reater proportion of the persons so educated do actually becoion, than of a siacy Take collectively any number of families in which such an education prevails, and the sa persons respectively into subsequent life But any one who hears the suggestion, feels there is no need to wait the lapse of time and follow their actual course As instructed by what he has already seen in society, he can go forith them prophetically, with perfect certainty that many more of the one tribe than that of the other, will become persons not only of moral respectability but decided piety Any one that should assert respecting them that the probabilities are equal and indifferent, would be considered as sporting a wilful absurdity, or betraying that he is one of those who did not co they can learn in it And the experience which thus authorizes a perfect confidence of prediction, is evidence that, though discipline reat object in question, there is, nevertheless, such a constitution of things that it most certainly will, as an instrumental cause, in many instances effect it