I am thus brought back to the proposition with which I started, namely, that universal education is in this country a matter of deep national concern. Our experiment of republican institutions is not upon the petty scale of a single municipality or state, but it covers half a continent, and embraces peoples of widely diverse interests and conditions, but who are to remain "one and inseparable." Every condition of our perpetuity and progress as a nation adds. emphasis to the remark of Montesquieu, that it is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required. The one imperative necessity of this nation is that the public school be planted on every square mile of its peopled territory, and that the instruction imparted therein, be carried to the highest point of efficiency.

But what can the general government do to aid in securing this object? In view of the startling fact that the great body of the people that occupy nearly one-half of the national territory, are wholly destitute of the means of education, this inquiry has the deepest significance.

Three plans have been suggested:

1. The government may establish and maintain throughout its territory a national system of education.

2. It may by Congressional legislation enforce the maintenance of a public school system upon every State.

3. It may by conditional appropriations and by a system of general inspection and encouragement through the agency of a National Bureau of Education, induce each State to maintain an efficient school system.

Notwithstanding the cogency of the argument which may be adduced in favor of the first plan suggested, it is, in my judgment, too wide a departure from the settled educational policy of the country, to be seriously entertained. Such a system would doubtless prove highly advantageous in a portion of the country, but it would be very disastrous in those States that have already carried the work of general education to a high point. Besides, all experience shows, and I regard it a law of school progress, that the nearer the responsibility of maintaining schools is brought to those directly benefited by them, the greater the vital power and efficiency of a school system.

These remarks do not apply to the education of the freedmen. On the contrary, I believe it is the sacred and bounden duty of the general government to undertake, for a time, the education of the emancipated millions who through the war have received back their

the balance was against the Federal armies. The war was carried on, upon scientific principles, with a very unscientific practice. Nor is this surprising. Many of the officers educated at our National Military School had never been engaged in actual war. There was all the difference between play practice and real practice,-between the theoretic movements in military tactics, and the actual struggle for victory in the deadly encounter. Much was said in derision of military training. An actual schoolmaster in Kentucky, it was said, was gaining more fame than the best graduates of West Point. Practical good sense, personal daring, and a natural aptitude for command, did give, through the whole war, to some of the officers directly from civil life, a well-deserved fame. But how was it in the end? Almost all the officers who became eminent for distinguished services were men educated at West Point.

These facts are suggestive. We could not wish to have actual war, that our cadets might learn the theory of warfare, from the dreadful realities of the battle-field, but we can not restrain the thought of how much blood and treasure would have been spared if our officers had been at the beginning of the war what they were at the end. Now, this suggestion is none of mine. It is patent every where. Floods of tears have been shed because of the loss of dear ones, through the simple blunders of inexperience. Thousands of curses and imprecations have fallen upon the devoted heads of inexperienced officers, by men who have seen whole fortunes fade away at the loss of a single battle. And yet these very officers did the best they could. They have suffered worse than a score of deaths at the mortification of defeat-the crushing responsibility of exposing and losing so many precious lives. In many cases no one could have been at hand to do better. Let the lesson be generalized. It is not confined to military affairs. We have mere theorists in education. We have had those enter our schools as teachers, who have had correct views of education, but no practice; we have had those who from a natural tact have become good practical teachers, with very little knowledge of the theory of education, to say nothing of the many who, in like circumstances, have failed-and we have some who have both theory and practice combined. We have heard much said against Normal Schools and Training Schools, that the power to teach is a gift-not an attainment-we have known of teachers being employed because they could be hired cheap. But when a son or a daughter has the sensibilities maimed for life, the intellectual nature dwarfed, the reasoning faculties perverted, the injured interior nature does not call forth the tear of anguish, as when a

securing such action. I could, if necessary, fortify this statement by referring to experiments of the kind in other countries, and also in several of the States of the Union where State appropriations for school purposes are conditioned on a compliance by the local school authorities with certain stipulations. This policy has uniformly, so far as my information goes, been successful. Communities indifferent to the advantages of free schools, if not prejudiced against them, have, with this assistance to their judgment, come to a wiser conclusion respecting their value. There is no eye-salve so efficacious in removing mental blindness as self-interest, and instances of States permitting the bounties of the government to pass by them have, at least, not been frequent. I am confident that the adoption of the plan suggested would speedily secure a common school system in every State now destitute of such a system, and that it would lift up the schools, as it were bodily, in those States in which they are indifferently sustained. The impetus which it would give to the professional training of teachers throughout the country, would be of incalculable value as a means of elevating and vitalizing school instruction.

There is one other consideration worthy of mention just here. The sparsely settled States of the far West and South need the assistance of the general government in the establishment of systems of education, commensurate with their growing necessity—a fact the government has always recognized. There is not a State west of the Alleghanies that is not greatly indebted to the munificent grants of land made by Congress, for the early establishment of its school system. Nor have common schools alone been aided. Several State Universities are maintained entirely from the proceeds of such grants. It is estimated that if the land grants of Congress for educational purposes had been properly managed, they would now present an aggregate educational fund of about five hundred millions of dollars.

On account of the unfortunate land-holding system of the South and the consequent sparseness of population, it would be difficult to sustain an efficient general school system there, even in times of prosperity. A proper division of landed property is as essential to universal education as it is to democratic institutions. At all events, in the present financial condition of the South the assistance of the government in establishing public schools is needed, and clearly that assistance will prove the best, which is conditional.

As a means of paying the national debt, I know of no one measure fuller of promise than the increase and diffusion of intelligence

ments.

among the mass of the people. The expenditure of five to ten millions of dollars a year for this purpose, would be made good by almost immediate returns to the Post-office and Treasury departThe unschooled millions of the South write few letters, take few papers, and pay small taxes on incomes. There are no mines in this country so productive of wealth as the mind of the country. Educated labor is the true alchemy that can turn greenbacks into gold.

There is one other agency forming an essential part of the third plan proposed, which I hasten to consider. I allude to a National Bureau of Education, corresponding in many of its features to the National Department of Agriculture. The interests of education would unquestionably be greatly promoted by the organization of such a Bureau at the present time. It would render needed assistance in the establishment of school systems where they do not now exist, and prove a potent means for improving and vitalizing existing systems. I conceive it to be possible for a National Bureau of Education to be so managed as to well-nigh revolutionize school instruction in this country, and this too without its being invested with any official control of the school authorities in the several States. This it could accomplish:

1. By securing greater uniformity and accuracy in school statistics, and so translating and interpreting them that they may be more widely available and reliable as educational tests and measures. The present great diversity in the modes of collecting school statistics in the several States, makes it almost impossible to use them for the purpose of comparing the results attained.

2. By bringing together the results of school systems in different communities, states and nations, and determining their comparative value, not simply by measuring their length and breadth as with a yard-stick, but by separating the pure gold of education from the dross, as in a crucible.

3. By collecting the results of all important experiments in new or special methods of instruction and management, and making them the common property of the school officers and teachers of the country.

4. By diffusing among the people much needed information respecting the school laws of the different States; the various modes of providing and disbursing, school funds; the different classes of school officers employed and their relative duties; the qualifications demanded of teachers and the agencies provided for their special training; the best methods of classifying and grading schools; im

is too true, and we ought to receive it, and thank them for it, though we might with great pertinency retort "Physician heal thyself."

It is to be deplored as wholly incompatible with the true spirit of freemen. Its very essence is a slavish deference to the mere opinions of others-the authority of a text-book; it is a complete surrender to the spirit of dogmatism-instead of that of truth and realism. Children should learn to pay homage to truth as such. They have then a sure guide. To this they should yield an unquestioned loyalty. In this way are they prepared to exercise the rights of freemen. Their education liberalizes on the one hand, and guards against unrestrained libertinism on the other. In a community thus trained, civil war could scarcely be possible. In a Republic, civil war must result from a blind deference to the opinions of a few leaders-whose aim is not to enlighten and liberalize, but to inflame prejudice, to inculcate narrow and sectional views. In confirmation, I have only to refer you to the appeals of the Southern leaders for the last four years.

We have, then, before us a specific work, to correct this unfortunate quality in our educational processes. What can such stultifying labor do towards elevating the mass of ignorance in the South, which humanity and patriotism bid us now enlighten? What can it do towards assimilating to the American character the vast influx of foreigners now, sure to seek a permanent home in a free country.

Another lesson too obvious to have escaped the attention of the most casual observer, appears in the very general neglect to exhibit clearly in our schools the genius of our government, and the forms of our political institutions. The vigorous teaching of political heresy, on the one side, has been set over against a wide-spread neglect on the other. I may be wrong, but it does not seem to me, that it is military tactics that we want,-but the universal diffusion of a correct knowledge of our government, national, State, and municipal. It is true that in some of our text-books, there are abstract statements respecting our forms of government. They may have been committed to memory. But to what purpose? Only to serve as an illustration of what has just been said. They have been useless lumber. A few oral lessons showing how a democratic government, like ours, springs up from the people-showing the relation of the people to the state, and to the general government,-of the States to each other, and to the general government, would do more than a thousand such lessons. This defect calls for an immediate reform.

Permit me to call your attention to one lesson more, which, it