Part 1 (2/2)

Now, if you will pardon a little ,--which is, I confess, a quality without merit, or, as Byron has it,

”A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure--critics all are ready made,”--

I will hazard the opinion that the practice of establishi+ng libraries in towns for the benefit of a portion of the inhabitants only is likely to prove pernicious in the end To be sure, reading for so for all is better than either In Massachusetts there is a general law that permits cities and towns to raise islature, in a few cases, has granted charters to library associations With due deference, it ested, that, where a spirit exists which leads a few individuals to ask for a charter, it would be better to turn this spirit into a public channel, that all enerally, that the establishment of a public library will be less expensive to the friends of the reater; while there will be an additional satisfaction in the good conferred upon others

We shall act wisely if we apply to books a st friends” Under this maxim Cicero has enumerated, as principles of huhting his fire by ours, if he has occasion; to give the best counsel we are able to one who is in doubt or distress; which, says he, ”are things that do good to the person that receives them, and are no loss or trouble to him that confers them” And he quotes, with approbation, the words of Ennius:

”He that directs the wandering traveller Doth, as it were, light another's torch by his own; Which gives hiave another”

A good book is a guide to the reader, and a well-selected library will be a guide towater, and turn aside or choke up the strea torch, and leave the inorant or distressed, when he ht easily be qualified to act as his own counsellor? In July 1856, Mr Everett gave five hundred dollars toward a library for the High School in his native town of Dorchester; and in 1854 Mr Abbott Lawrence gave an equal sum to his native town for the establishe donations, if we consider only the aest any other equal appropriation that would be as beneficial, in a public sense These donations are noble, because conceived in a spirit of comprehensive liberality They are examples worthy of imitation; and I venture to affiriven to the world a son able toIs it too much to believe that a public library in a toill double the nu, and consequently double the nuh we are not educated by , it is yet likely to happen that one who has a taste for books will also acquire habits of observation, study, and reflection

Professional institutes and clubs also serve to increase the su They have thus far avoided the evil which has waited or fastened upon similar associations in Europe,--subserviency to political designs Every profession or interest of labor has peculiar ideas and special purposes These ideas and purposes anizations Who can doubt the utility of associations of merchants, mechanics, and fare of opinions, the exhibition of products, the dissee of improvee begets knowledge What is the distinguishi+ng fact between a good school and a poor one? Is it not, that in a good school the prevailing public sentie and its acquisition? And does not the sanorant coe or city of artisans, each one eneral stock of knowledge, the aggregate progress will be appreciable, and, most likely, considerable If, on the other hand, each one plods by hie cannot be increased, and is likely to be diminished

The moral of the parable of the ten talents is e ”Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” We cannot conceive of a greater national calaishness at unrelieved and unchanging tasks The land in 1583, and for two hundred and fifty years she had the exclusive control of the trade; yet all that period passed aithout ie in the process; while in America the business was revolutionized, simplified, and economized one-half, in the period of five years In 1840 the valuation of Massachusetts was about three hundred e portion of this suainst the constant i with the settlement of the state,--the natural and unavoidable result of an ignorant system of farm labor The revival of education in America was soon followed by aindustries of the people, and especially in the departriculture The principle of association has not yet been as beneficial to the farmers as to the mechanics; but the former are soon to be compensated for the delay With the exception of the business of discovering small planets, which see rivalry a a number of enthusiastic, well-ricultural learning has ricultural population is professionally an inert population; and, therefore, as in the accumulation of John Jacob Astor's fortune, it was more difficult to take the first step than to make all the subsequent iving direction and force to the labors of the farmer; and it is easy for any person to draw to hi of the world

Libraries and lectures for the operatives in the eneral learning The city of Lawrence, under the lead of well-known public-spirited gentle the system in America A land; but that movement had for its object the education of the operatives in the sie of household duties An English writer says: ”Many employers have already established schools in connection with their manufactories From many instances before us, we may take that of Mr Morris, of Manchester, who has risen, himself, from the condition of a factory operative, and who has felt in his own person the disadvantages under which that class of workmen labor He has introduced many judicious improvements He has spent about one hundred and fifty pounds in ventilating his mills; and has established a library, coffee-room, class-roo The latter has been established for feirls generally go to the ht in the schools to sew, knit,” etc

But, in the provision made at Lawrence for intellectual culture, it is assumed, very properly, that the operatives are faht in the public schools This could not be assu population, nor, indeed, of any town population, considered as a whole Herein Aland Our laborers occupy a higher standpoint intellectually, and in that proportion their labors are ers and proprietors at Lawrence were influenced by a desire to iard to any pecuniary return to themselves, either immediate or remote And it would be a sufficient satisfaction to witness the growth of knowledge andits institutions her results will be accompanied, however, by others of sufficient importance to be considered When we _hire_, or, what is, for this inquiry, the sa, _buy_ that coet? Is it iven quantity of muscle and bone? In ordinary cases we expect these, but in all cases we expect soh cost, too, what has, as a product, the least conceivable amount of manual labor in it,--a professional opinion, for exath th at all, unless it is directed by so stream has power to drive machinery, and the arm of the idiot has force for so mind We are not so unwise as to purchase the power of the stream, or the force of the idiot's ar produced, and we often pay more for the skill that has directed the power than for the power itself The river that now moves the machinery of a factory in which many scores of men and women find their daily labor, and earn their daily bread, was ele set of mill-stones; and thus a man and boy were induced to divide their tirist in the hopper and the fish under the daed; but the inventive, creative genius ofresults are produced With reater In proportion to the population of the country, we are daily dispensing withthe national production There isthe machinery propelled by the forces of nature, andthe iven product is furnished by less outlay of physical force Forreat deal of bone and muscle into a yard of cloth; noe put in very little We have substituted mind for physical force, and the question is, which is the more economical? Or, in other words, is it of any consequence to the eent?

Before we discuss this point abstractly, let us notice the conduct of norant farm laborer as ent norant man is not the best man upon a farm, is he likely to be so in a shop or mill? And if not, we see how the proprietors of factories are interested in elevating the standard of learning, in the ular in this

All classes of employers are equally concerned in the education of the laborer; for learning not only makes his labor more valuable to hienerally reduced, and the change affects favorably all interests of society This benefit is one of the first in point of time, and the one, perhaps,has conferred upon the laborer As each laborer, with the sareater result, of course the aggregate products of the world are vastly increased, although they represent only the same number of laborers that a less quantity would have represented under an ignorant system

The division of these products upon any principle conceivable leaves for the laborer a larger quantity than he could have before coh the share of the wealthy may be disproportionate, their ability to consus necessary and convenient for the purposes of life, according to the ideas at the ti population, necessarily poor while ignorance prevails, is elevated to a position of greater social and physical comfort, as mind takes the place of brute force in the industries of the world Learning, then, is not the result of social coence, and increases or dieneral or liranted that each laborer's position corresponds or answers to the sunorant laborer would enjoy the advantages of a general culture, to which he contributed little or nothing; and it ent laborer, in the norant population, as in Ireland or India, for example, would be compelled to accept, in the main, the condition of those around him But there is no evidence on the face of society now, or in its history, that an ignorant population, whether a laboring population or not, has ever escaped from a condition of poverty And the converse of the proposition is undoubtedly true, that an intelligent laboring co is sure to produce wealth; wealth is likely to contribute to learning, but it does not necessarily produce it Hence it follows that learning is the only means by which the poor can escape from their poverty

In this statement it is assumed that education does not proative assumption true, but it is safe to assuiven population will be less vicious when educated than when ignorant This, I cannot doubt, is a general truth, subject, of course, to solish people are now engaged has ible certain opinions and impressions that are latent in many minds There has been an attempt to show that vice has increased in proportion to education This atteh there le facts, or classes of facts, that seem to sustain such an opinion

Now, suppose this case,--and neither this case nor any similar one has ever occurred in real life,--but suppose crih there should be no increase of population; would this fact prove that learning made men worse? By no e itself By education, the business, and pecuniary relations and transactions of a people are almost indefinitely ainst property, are multiplied in an equal ratio Would person or property be better respected in New York or Boston, if the norant population of the world could be substituted for the present inhabitants of those cities? The business nerves of men are frequently shocked by sohted moralists, who lack faith, exclaiet that for every defaulter in a city there are hundreds of honest men, who receive and render justly unto all, and hold without check the fortunes of others So Mr Druainst a national system of education, because what he was pleased to call _instruction_ had not saved William Palmer and John Sadlier But the truth in this matter is not at the bottom of a well; it is upon the surface Where it is the habit of society generally to be ignorant, you will find it the necessity of that society to be poor; and where ignorance and poverty both abound, the temptations to crime are unquestionably few, but the power to resist temptation is as unquestionably weak The absence of cri to the absence of temptation, rather than to the presence of virtue Such a condition of society is as near to real virtue as the mental weakness of the idiot is to true happiness

Turning again to the discussion in the British Parlialish statesmen are, in principle and in their ideas of political econolish cotton-spinners were a hundred years ago The cotton-spinners thought the invention of labor-saving ravely argues that schools will so occupy the attention of children, that the farive you his oords; and I have no doubt you will be in a measure relieved of the dulness of this essay, when you listen to as actually cheered, in the British Co of the resolutions in favor of a national system of instruction, Mr Ball said: ”It was iricultural districts of the country He had obtained a return fro the principles advocated by the noble lord were adopted, the results would be perfectly fearful The folloas the return he had obtained froent: William Chapes thirteen shi+llings, besides a house; he had seven children, who earned nine shi+llings a week; s a week Robert Arbor, fifteen years on the fars a week, and a house; six children, who earned six shi+llings a week; s John Stevens, thirty-three years a servant on the farht up ten children, whose average earnings had been twelve shi+llings weekly, s a week Robert Carbon, twenty-two years a servant on the far ten children, who earned ten shi+llings a week; s a week Thus it appeared that in these four fas weekly, and the children thirty-seven shi+llings a week; so that the children earned sos of the fathers He would ask the house, if the fathers were to be deprived of the earnings of the children, how could they provide bread for them? It was perfectly ies to the amount of the loss he thus sustained, or they ain, those ere at all conversant with agriculture knew that if they deprived the farriculture could not be carried on There was no et the weeds out of the land”--_London Tiht which this stateuratuitously to give the author the benefit of a scientific arrangement ”If a national system of education is adopted, the children of my tenants will be sent to school; if the children of my tenants are sent to school, my turnips will not be weeded; if my turnips are not weeded, I shall eat fat mutton no more”

After this from a statesman, we need not wonder that a correspondent of Lord John Russell writes, ”That a far to a day-school; he finds that since Sunday-schools have been established the birds have increased and eat his corn, and because he cannot now procure the services of the boys, who his fields”--_London Tiland for the purpose ofan attack upon her opinions; but, as kindred ideas prevail ah to a limited extent only, the folly of them may be seen in persons at a distance, when it would not be realized by ourselves Moreover, the presentation of these sos ridicule upon a whole class of errors; and when errors are so ingrained that ard to them, ridicule is often the only weapon of successful attack

And it is no compliment to an American audience for the speaker to say that their own est the refutation which these errors demand If the chief end of man, for which boyhood should be a preparation, were to weed turnips or to frighten blackbirds from corn-fields, then surely the objection of Mr Ball, and the complaint and spirit of resistance offered by Lord John Russell's farmer, would be eminently proper But Lord John Russell did not himself assent to the view furnished by his correspondent Mr Ball's theory evidently is, ”Take good care of the turnips, and leave the culture of the boys and girls to chance;” and Lord John Russell's wise farmer unquestionably thinks that cereal peculations of blackbirds are lected children, grown to men

Mr Clay, chaplain of Preston jail, says: ”Thirty-six per cent come into jail unable to say the Lord's Prayer; and seventy-two per cent

come in such a state of ive them instruction, or to teach the of the words used to them” Here we have, as cause and effect, the philosophy of Mr Ball, and the facts of Mr Clay And, further, this philosophy is as bad in principle, when tried by the rules of political economy, as when subjected to moral and Christian tests

Mr Ball says there is no et the weeds out of the land This may be true; and once there was no et the seed into the land, or the crops fro the e, or even spirit of inquiry, aht? By education, surely, and that ious culture for which secular education is a fit preparation The contributions of learning to labor, in a pecuniary aspect alone, have far exceeded the contributions of labor to learning

It is impossible to enule facts will give us soated value and force