Part 24 (2/2)
If all our schools were under the charge of teachers possessing what I regard as the right intellectual and moral qualifications, and if all the children of the coht under the influence of these schools for tenup THE WHOLE COMMUNITY to intelligence and virtue would soon be accomplished, as completely as any human end can be obtained by huht here introduce a vast amount of incontrovertible evidence to show that, if the attendance of all the children in any commonwealth could be secured at such i for ten e of four to that of sixteen years, they would prove competent to the removal of ninety-nine one hundredths of the evils hich society is now infested in one generation, and that they would ultimately redeem the state from social vices and crimes
The Hon Horace Mann, late Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, issued a circular in 1847, in which he raised the question now under consideration This circular was sent out to a large number of the most experienced and reputable teachers in the Northern and Middle States, all of ere pleased to reply to it Each reply corroborates the position here stated; and, taken together _as a whole_, they are entitled to implicit credence The whole correspondence is too voluminous to be here exhibited; I can not, however, forbear introducing a few illustrative passages
Says Mr Page, the late lamented principal of the New York State Normal School, ”Could I be connected with a school furnished with all the appliances you name; where all the children should be constant attendants upon my instruction for a succession of years; where all my fellow-teachers should be such as you suppose; and where all the favorable influences described in your circular should surround me and cheer me, even with my moderate abilities as a teacher, I should scarcely expect, after the first generation suble case_ to secure the results you have naed in the profession of teaching twenty-four years, remarks as follows: ”Per with individuals alainst hope, and sometimes in a manner, too, which I can now see was not alise, I have never had a case which has not resulted in so to iven years afterward by persons who re the pleasantest andincidents of my life So uniform have been the results, when I have had a fair trial and tily adopted the motto, _Never despair_ Parents and teachers are apt to look for too speedy results from the labors of the latter Theand slow in reaching the full th I was told a few years since by a person who knew the history of nearly all my pupils for the first five years of ht reproach upon himself or mortification upon friends by a bad life I can not now look over the whole of h to receive a decided impression, whose life is not honorable and useful I find them in all the learned professions and in the various mechanical arts I find h half the states of the Union, and as the wives and assistants of Christian lobe
”So far, therefore, as e of the experience of others extends, so far as the statistics of criht upon the subject, I confidently expect that ninety-nine in a hundred, and I think even more, with such means of education as you have supposed, and with such Divine favor as we are authorized to expect, would becoood members of society, the supporters of order, and law, and truth, and justice, and all righteousness”
The Rev Jacob Abbott, who has been engaged in the practical duties of teaching for about ten years in the cities of Boston and New York, and who has had under his care about eight hundred pupils of both sexes, and of all ages fro letter the sentiment placed at the head of this section ”If all our schools were under the charge of teachers possessing what I regard as the right intellectual and moral qualifications, and if all the children of the coht under the influence of these schools for tenup THE WHOLE COMMUNITY to intelligence and virtue would soon be accomplished as completely as any huer S Howard, of Ver about twenty years, re from what I have seen and do know, if the conditions you have mentioned were strictly complied with; if the attendance of the scholars could be as universal, constant, and long-continued as you have stated; if the teachers were h intellectual and moral qualities--apt to teach, and devoted to their work, and favored with that blessing which the word and providence of God teach us always to expect upon our honest, earnest, and well-directed efforts in so good a cause--on these conditions and under these circumstances, I do not hesitate to express the opinion that the failures need not be--would not be one per cent”
Miss Catharine E Beecher, of Brattleboro, Vered directly and personally as a teacher about fifteen years, in Hartford, Connecticut, and Cincinnati, Ohio, and who has had the charge of not less than a thousand pupils fro these and other considerations, remarks as follows: ”I will now suppose that it could be so arranged that, in a given place, containing from ten to fifteen thousand inhabitants, in any part of the country where I ever resided, _all_ the children at the age of four shall be placed six hours a day, for twelve years, under the care of teachers having the sa received that course of training for their office that any state in this Union can secure to the teachers of its children Let it be so arranged that all these children shall remain till sixteen under these teachers, and also that they shall spend their lives in this city, and I have no hesitation in saying I do not believe that _one_, no, NOT A SINGLE ONE, would fail of proving a respectable and prosperous member of society; nay, more, I believe every one would, at the close of life, find admission into the world of endless peace and love I say this solemnly, deliberately, and with the full belief that I am upheld by such imperfect experimental trials as I have made, or seen made by others; but, more than this, that I am sustained by the authority of Heaven, which sets forth this grand palladiuo, and when he is old he will not depart from it_
”This sacred maxim surely sets the Divine _imprimatur_ to the doctrine that _all_ children _can_ be trained up in the way they should go, and that, when so trained, they will not depart from it Nor does it imply that education _alone_ will secure eternal life without supernatural assistance; but it points to the truethis indispensable aid
”In this view of the case, I can cos that islators, have the control of the institutions, the laws, and the wealth of our _physically_ prosperous nation, should be brought to see that they now have in their hands the power of securing to _every_ child in the coeneration a life of virtue and usefulness here, and an eternity of perfected bliss hereafter How, then, can I express, or iine, the awful responsibility which rests upon thee of nations, if they suffer the present state of things to go on, bearing, as it does, thousands and hundreds of thousands of helpless children in our country to hopeless and irretrievable ruin!”
Testiht be h, however, I trust, has been said to re power of education which the reader may have previously entertained Universal education, we have seen, constitutes theto individuals and communities, to states and nations, exemption from all avoidable evils of whatever kind, and the possession of a cooods, with the ability and disposition so to enjoy the short of it, will dissipate the evils of ignorance; it will greatly increase the productiveness of labor, and make men more moral, industrious, and skillful, and thus diminish pauperis the nu in every coeneration such judicious physical and ive the foundation for general prosperity, will greatly proevity, and will thus, in both of these and in many other ways, do more to increase the population, wealth, and universal well-being of the thirty states of this Union than all other means of state policy combined
At the late Peace Convention at Paris to consider the practicability and necessity of a Congress of Nations to adjust national differences, composed of about fifteen hundred members, picked men from every Christian nation, VICTOR HUGO, the President of the Convention, on taking the chair, reat applause, in which the following passages occur:
”A day will coainst the other; when appeals will no longer be made to war, but to civilization!
The time will come when the cannon will be exhibited as an old instru could have been used A day, I say, will come when the United States of A to each other the hand of fellowshi+p across the ocean, and e shall have the happiness of seeing every where the majestic radiation of universal concord”
That such a tiloith Christian benevolence must earnestly desire and fervently pray But we can not hope to attain the end without the use of the necessary lorious a result as this, that has becohout Christendom, must follohen the conditions upon which it depends are complied with What these are there can be little room for doubt Let, then, every friend of Universal Peace seek it in the use of the appropriate means--_Universal Education_
The same remark will apply to every form of Christian benevolence and universal philanthropy; for, as has been well remarked, in universal education, every ”follower of God and friend of hu forward that particular reform to which he is devoted In whatever departed, he will find that departreat circle of beneficence of which _Universal Education_ is the center and circumference; and that he can most successfully promote the per the establishment of, and attendance upon, IMPROVED SCHOOLS FREE TO ALL
THE END