honors in the government may be enjoyed by them. In a word, the teachers take the young minds as they find them, and fill them with the hopes, the desires, and the aspirations of educated and refined gentlemen, or at least such is what they are expected to do. The girls are trained and taught similarly. They are filled with all the ideas, tastes, and aspirations that are becoming to a true womanhood. Both boys and girls are taught not that they must go to school because the state wants to nationalize them, as in Prussia, but that they ought to go to school for their own good, as well as for the honor and prosperity of the state. Except in one or two States, they are not warned that they will be deprived of exercising the functions of citizens, as in Sweden, unless they have a certain amount of education; but their education is liberally provided for by the State, and they are sent by fond parents to intelligent teachers, whose duty it is to awaken their young minds to a proper sense of their several duties, and to a full realization of what they may by zealous efforts reasonably hope to achieve.

"Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time."

Whether the Chinese plan of giving office and honors to the thoroughly educated only, or the American plan of giving to the educated no honors or rewards except such as they earn for themselves outside of the schools,

is the better one, remains for time to decide. The Chinese plan would seem, at least, to have given stability to the government; but this would also seem to be one of the results of the American plan, for not a single State that had any thing worthy of the name of a system of public instruction participated in the recent rebellion. Louisiana might be excepted; but her system was not long in operation before the troubles began, and consequently it can not be blamed for what followed. Education is the cheap defense of nations.

SEC. 4. Governments for the most part have not been framed on models. Their parts and their powers in general grew out of occasional acts, prompted by some urgent expediency or some private interest, which in the course of time coalesced and hardened into usages. These usages became the object of respect and the guide of conduct long before they were embodied in written laws. Governments are but societies of men united together to procure their mutual safety and advantage; and as these men make laws by which they are themselves to be governed, they naturally make such laws as will accord as nearly as possible with their own manners and tastes. And this is not only the natural but the necessary course for them to pursue. For it is a maxim in the science of legislation and government that laws are of no avail without manners. That is to say, the best intended legislative provisions can have but little beneficial effect at first, and none at all in a short time, unless they are congenial to the disposition and habits,

2

the religious prejudices, and the approved immemorial usages of the people for whom they were enacted. The blind prejudices; idiosyncrasies, and vices of each particular people, as well as their advance in civilization, general intelligence, and state-craft, are easily ascertainable from an examination of their laws. A wise government wishes to provide against the perpetuation of any thing that may be in its organic laws having a tendency to vice or weakness. Consequently the most successful, promising, and enlightened governments of the present day, while they despair of materially altering the manners or reforming the habits of the older members of society, have a tender care for the rising generation, and zealously endeavor to teach them, at an early age, the manners and principles which are thought to be most conducive to the happiness of the citizen and the prosperity and perpetuity of the state. In the natural course of things, all those who, by the laxity or depravity of their moral instincts, or by the arrogance of spiritual pride, the vagaries of undisciplined imaginations, and the extravagances to which badly balanced intellects may be led in the pursuit of ultimate principles, are working injury to the state, will soon be numbered only with the dead; and it were well if their evil manners and principles were buried with them. Obstinate manhood may blindly adhere to its old idols, but the reaper will come by and by; and it is to be hoped that the idolater and his brazen images will be carried away together, in order that purer shrines may be reared and nobler objects adored by those who

are to come after. Toward the accomplishment of this great end—the symmetrical development of the intellectual powers and the purification of the manners of the masses—no one can do more than the intelligent and conscientious teacher. To refine manners, develop thought, and fill young souls with noble aspirations is the everyday duty of his high calling. He is intrusted by the state with one of its most tender cares, and it looks to him almost wholly for the accomplishment of what is really its highest and noblest ambition-the formation of minds such as will enhance its society, perfect its laws, and adorn its history. To this end it contributes largely from the public funds, builds a comfortable school-house. in every one of its neighborhoods, carefully selects from its most exemplary and intellectual young men and women a teacher for each, and then opens the doors to all equally, showing no partiality and making no distinctions, but inviting all to come and enjoy without money and without price. And now, after all this tender solicitude and generous profusion, the state lacks no confidence in its teachers; but, placing an implicit faith in their zeal, it takes a calm survey of the coming centuries, and beholding generation after generation, it rejoices that each successive one will be wiser, better, and happier than the preceding.

CHAPTER II.

OF RELIGION IN SCHOOLS-AS THE LAW WAS.

"True religion

Is always mild, propitious, and humble;

Plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood;
Nor bears destruction on her chariot-wheels:

But stoops to polish, succor, and redress,

And builds her grandeur on the public good."

SEC. 1. In England, in the time of Charles II., all persons were prohibited from teaching school, "unless they be licensed by the ordinary, and subscribe a declaration of conformity to the liturgy of the Church, and reverently frequent divine service established by the laws of this kingdom." (13 and 14 Car. II. c. 4; 17 Car. II. c. 2.) This was the same Charles from whom Roger Williams obtained the charter for Rhode Island. No dissenter shall hold the mastership of any college or school of royal foundation since 1 Will. and Mary. (19 Geo. III. c. 44; 1 Mod. 3.) A schoolmaster must be licensed by the bishop, and may be punished in the spiritual courts for keeping a school without a license. (Matthews v. Burdett, 3 Salk. 318.) It is not our purpose to explain the