LECTURE IV. PROVINCE OF LEGISLATION IN REGARD TO PUBLIC EDUCATION. BY REV. A. H. QUINT, THE subject upon which I propose to occupy the time allotted to me, is The Province of Legislation in regard to Public Education. Though no legislator myself, nor addressing to any great extent actual legislators, yet certain homely, but honest thoughts have sometimes occurred to me. And the principles which make our School System a part, if not the most important part, of our State Institutions, deserve for their own sake to be well understood and frequently reviewed. Possibly there has been, to some extent, carelessness in taking for granted the propriety of the organic connection of schools with the State, and so an omission to command thoroughly the whole subject. Nor is it indeed certain, that the true basis of legislation upon Education is universally approved. Because the battle has been fought—the victory won -in one generation, it is not safe to regard principles as established, and institutions safe. The old reasoners pass on. The new advance. They are ignorant of the causes of events and things. The lingering veterans of the din and smoke of past battle-fields may be impatient of doubt; but every new generation needs, nevertheless, to be indoctrinated. In fact, it is not evident that the work of the State, as regards education, is favorably viewed by all classes. There are States of our Union in which no such system is recognized. There are, in the more favored States, those who demand denominational schools, and call State schools" Godless." Even in New England even in Massachusetts, there are murmurs at the supremacy of the State over schools, which I do not over-estimate, for I do not regard them as very important, yet actually existing. Angry objections arise in some quarters at the requirements of the State. Mutterings of discontent occasionally emerge into denunciation and abuse; some few deny in toto the right of the State to establish a system of education. The features of legislation which are objected to by those who go less extreme lengths, are the very ones essential to any broad and generous public system. Sometimes teachers are treated as mere dependents on the public treasury. What makes Public Instruction public, is not that it is free to the public, but that it is instituted by the people in their organic capacity. It is a matter of mere legislation. It is not a sine qua non to society. Every teacher in a public school holds his place by virtue of State laws. A few pages on our book of General Statutes, repealable in a day, are the dyke which separates and shields these fair gardens, and fertile fields, and rich orchards, from the salt waves of desolation. Repeal these, and school-houses are closed; schools are scattered; teachers are turned to other employments; officers are powerless; taxes cease to be levied. Go back of the now revised General Statutes, and at intervals, in fact of late, every year, have advances been made; back of which you can go, continually. The improvements in the system have been made by laws, behind which you can go, till a few score years limit the very existence of the whole system itself. You find the Puritan in Massachusetts in 1647 or 1642, establishing that Free School System, which still remains unimproved as to its essence, though often modified as to its form; which declares it to be the right and duty of the State to establish and sustain a system of Free Schools for all the children within its limits. It has been often objected, oftener insinuated, and still oftener unconsciously held, that the control which the State holds over education is itself a usurpation. By what right does it assume to educate? Why does it depart from the simple idea that society, in its capacity as a State, institutes government only to secure justice and tranquillity; to afford to all the free enjoyment of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness? To punish the guilty; to protect the peaceful; to allow to all the opportunity of self-control and selfdevelopment, these are the objects of government. Not to supply labor to the destitute workman; not to establish institutions of religions; and, no more, to educate, however desirable in themselves these may be,-yet to be let alone, as out of the province of government. It is asked by sincere inquirers, why should the State step in between the child and his parent, when to the parent, not the State, is it said, “Train up a child in the way he should go." Nay, education and religion are inseparable, it is added ; the State, in refusing to educate in religion, establishes an atheistical failure. On the other hand, it is felt by some, whose souls are in their pockets, "By what right is a childless man, or a man of wealth, taxed to educate other men's children? Why not as rightly be taxed to feed and clothe them?" In general, why not leave to private enterprise the establishment of such schools as community demand?” Because, as every thoughtful man feels, the general good of society demands the support of a State system of schools. Education is the means of civilization. General education, of general civilization. The peace, the harmony, the security, of society; the courtesies and culture of life; the development of strength and public prosperity; and the high tone of civilization, as such, demand, not merely education, but a universal system sustained by the State. I know no better statement than that the general well-being of society demands that the State do this work, which no other instrumentality can do. Yet involved in this are the minor arguments, which satisfy different minds, and contribute to make up the whole. The political economist contemplates its relation to public wealth. He is evidently right in declaring that material prosperity is very greatly dependent upon general education. The experiment reported upon as to the value of intelligent labor, even in its connection with machinery, as embodied in the report of the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, for 1860, intimates what the general prosperity of the country would gain, were all its people well educated. The difference is in intelligence. I doubt not that the great influx of foreign labor of so low a grade, is because of the fact that general intelligence has lifted our home population out of mere digging; nature abhors a vacuum, and the tide of emigration rushes in to fill its appropriate place. And yet, while general prosperity is greatly promoted by a system of general instruction, even to the amount of ten to twenty-five per cent. in connection of labor with machinery, - almost of itself instinct with life, I would not like to base our institution on this mainly. I should fear that such a principle carried out would justify the establishment of government workshops, as in the France of 1848; or to pass sumptuary laws, and agrarian enactments, which no sound economist can favor. Though to establish such a system as ours, is not so great an interference with trade as that of our fathers, when they paid the price of wheat, and barley, and beef, and mutton, declaring that the excessive prices were "to the great dishonor of God, the scandal of the gospel, and the grief of divers of God's people;" though no more interference than in tariffs, to discriminate in favor of home productions; though no greater than to aid Agricultural Societies and Exhibitions; inasmuch as it interferes with no channels of business, it dis |