CHAPTER XIV.

NATURAL RIGHTS CONSIDERED (CONCLUDED).—

EDUCATION.

"Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding.”—Proverbs.

LIKE all other institutions, those of an educational character carry with them the traits and characteristics stamped upon them by the age in which they originated. Until within a comparatively modern period education was regarded as an accomplishment. Labor was the inevitable lot of the great mass of the people. Under monarchical governments this was the necessary consequence. Under a more liberal government education became more popular; but still it was regarded as an accomplishment.

As long as the lower classes, under the supervision of overseers, produced the wealth, the higher classes had no disposition to apply their educational acquirements to such purposes. But in a republican government, where all are equal in their political status, where all are supposed to provide for their own wants, where social relations require equal social qualifications, where

duties as citizens are required of all, education must become universal; and as its benefits must extend to all, so it must be supported by all.

Of late years this idea has become quite universal, and the people are expecting great results from our system of free schools. But if we look back for the last twenty years, in which our public schools have flourished best, what do we see? A greater change from the simplicity of our early republican principles toward aristocratic rule has taken place during that time than in all the time before. Can we say that this change has been in spite of our public schools? This would not be true. They have aided in this change. All who have been and are conspicuous in building up monopoly, in legislating, in the strife for political power, in the establishment of corporate monopoly-all of these have been and are the most highly educated. Their acquirements have aided them, qualified them for this work.

The tendency of education is away from productive vocations. As a rule, the youth who graduates from a grammar or a high school feels himself above the condition of a laborer and seeks some elegant (?) employment. While the uneducated man or woman feels a dependence on manual labor, the educated man or

woman thinks only of some professional or genteel vocation.

Class distinctions are encouraged, labor is degraded, the professions are overrun, and poverty increased. This is not all. The evils of our present system are both positive and negative: positive, because the knowledge acquired is mostly impracticable and useless, occupying the time the most precious in life, a period that cannot be compensated for, an outlay of labor and expense that cannot be recalled, for the knowledge, most of which is forgotten in after years, cannot be used, and therefore drops out like dead matter; negative, because practical and useful knowledge is neglected and lost, and the mind, by improper training, loses its vigor and power of thought and reasoning, to say nothing of the errors and false notions that come from most of the existing institutions of learning.

Due qualification for citizenship is necessary for the existence and maintenance of a true republic. Intelligence and virtue are its essentials -intelligence to comprehend the principles upon which it is founded, and virtue to appreciate the natural rights upon which it is based. Intelligence to comprehend the relation of cause and effect, to realize the condition of mind arising from false teaching and prevailing errors, and

the effect of exciting causes which constant activity unconsciously develops, and traits of character which greatly modify individuals and even nations; and virtue that inspires that moral sense that will not tolerate wrong, such love and veneration for justice as regards every violation of it as a sacrilege.

Of the former, are the blind acceptance of opinions long cherished, without examination or reason, or the strong adherence to them in spite of reason, and the rejection of new ideas without examination or reason. Of the latter, blind adherence to party, and clanish spirit, pride, intolerance, and arrogance.

A little reflection will show how difficult it is for communities or even individuals to change their opinions. Indeed, it is difficult, for just when to change opinion is the test of wisdom.

That we must change our opinions sometime is evident from the fact that nothing in nature is at a stand-still. We are carried onward by the law of progress, and must conform to its changeful conditions.

It is curious and interesting to study the advance of great ideas in the past. Sensuous perception for ages limited the intellectnal powers of man. If a great genius, like Pythagores, penetrated the veil of sensuous perception and

proclaimed the deeper phenomena of nature, as in the motion of the planets, it was silenced by the sensuous perception of the Ptolemaic theory for a thousand years. The Apparent veiled the Real. Even the clear and forcible reasoning of Copernicus availed nothing. The Real disclosed by the laws of Galileo banished the Apparent, and gave the world a deeper insight into the great arcana of nature. The deeper comprehension of Columbus in penetrating the veil of the Apparent went for naught; only visions of possible wealth and dominion, coupled with woman's inherent faith and trust in man, triumpeed over sensuous perception.

It is humiliating and surprising when we look back and discover how long we have been beating against a grand idea without seeing it. So simple a thing as the art of printing was on the point of being discovered for a thousand years. The invention of the telescope was a mere accident; and the phenomena that led to the discovery of steam in its application as a motive power were familiar for thousands of years. Professor Morse was ridiculed when he applied to Congress for a small appropriation to enable him to put in operation his simple plan of teleg raphy.

And we are now, undoubtedly looking at ideas