II. EDUCATION-A NATIONAL INTEREST.

SPEECH OF JAMES A. GARFIELD OF OHIO, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 8TH, 1866, ON A BILL "TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION," REPORTED BY THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MEMORIAL OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS.

At the conclusion of a general discussion of the bill, the previous question upon the bill and the pending amendments was demanded and seconded, and the main question ordered;

Mr. GARFIELD spoke as follows: I did intend to make a somewhat elaborate statement of the reasons why the select committee recommended the passage of this bill; but I know the anxiety that many gentlemen feel to have this debate concluded, and to allow the private bills now on the calendar and set for this day, to be disposed of, and to complete as soon as possible the work of this session. I will, therefore, abandon my original purpose and restrict myself to a brief statement of a few leading points in the argument, and leave the decision with the House. I hope this waiving of a full discussion of the bill will not be construed into a confession that it is inferior in importance to any measure before the House; for I know of none that has a nobler object, or that more vitally affects the future of this nation.

I first ask the House to consider the magnitude of the interests involved in this bill. The very attempt to discover the amount of pecuniary and personal interest we have in our schools shows the necessity of such a law as is here proposed. I have searched in vain for any complete or reliable statistics showing the educational condition of the whole country. The estimates I have made are gathered from various sources and can only be approximately correct. I am satisfied, however, that they are far below the truth.

Even by the incomplete and imperfect educational statistics of the

*The Committee consisted of Garfield of Ohio, Patterson of New Hampshire, Boutwell of Massachusetts, Donnelly of Minnesota, Moulton of Illinois, Goodyear of New York, and Randall, of Pennsylvania.

Census Bureau, it appears that in 1860, there were in the United States 115,224 common schools, 500,000 school officers, 150,241 teachers, and 5,477,037 scholars; thus showing that more than six millions of the people of the United States are directly engaged in the work of education.

Not only has this large proportion of our population been thus engaged, but the Congress of the United States has given fifty-three million acres of public lands to fourteen States and Territories of the Union for the support of schools. In the old ordinance of 1785, it was provided that one section of every township, one thirty-sixth of all the public lands of the United States, should be set apart and held forever sacred to the support of the schools of the country. In the ordinance of 1787, it was declared that "religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

It is estimated that at least $50,000,000 have been given in the United States by private individuals for the support of schools. We have thus an interest, even pecuniarily considered, hardly second to any other. We have tolerably complete school statistics from only seventeen States of the Union.

Our Congressional Library contains no educational reports whatever from the remaining nineteen. In those seventeen States there are 90,835 schools, 190,000 teachers, 5,107,285 pupils, and $34,000,000 annually appropriated by the Legislatures for the support and maintenance of common schools. Notwithstanding the great expenditures entailed upon them during five years of war, they raised by taxation $34,000,000 annually for the support of common schools. In several States of the Union more than fifty per cent. of all the tax, imposed for State purposes, is for the support of common schools. And yet, gentlemen are impatient because we wish to occupy a short time in considering this bill!

I will not trouble the House by repeating common-places so familiar to every gentleman here, as that our system of government is based upon the intelligence of the people. But I wish to suggest that there never has been a time when all our educational forces should be in such perfect activity as at the present day.

Ignorance-stolid ignorance-is not our most dangerous enemy. There is very little of that kind of ignorance among the white population of this country.

In the Old World, among the despotic governments of Europe, the

great disfranchised class—the pariahs of political and social life—are indeed ignorant, mere inert masses, moved upon and controlled by the intelligent and cultivated aristocracy. Any unrepresented and hopelessly disfranchised class in a government will inevitably be struck with intellectual paralysis. Our late slaves afford a sad illustration.

But among the represented and voting classes of this country, where all are equal before the law, and every man is a political power for good or evil, there is but little of the inertia of ignorance. The alternatives are not education or no education; but shall the power of the citizen be directed aright towards industry, liberty, and patriotism, or, under the baneful influence of false theories and evil influences, shall it lead him continually downward till it ruin both him and the government?

If he is not educated in the school of virtue and integrity he will be educated in the school of vice and iniquity. We are, therefore, afloat on the sweeping current; we must make head against it, or we shall go down with it to the saddest of destinies.

According to the census of 1860 there were 1,218,311 free white inhabitants of the United States over twenty-one years of age who

could not read nor write, and 871,418 of those were American-born citizens. One-third of a million of people are being annually thrown upon our shores from the Old World, a large per cent. of whom are uneducated, and the gloomy total has been swelled by the 4,000,000 slaves admitted to citizenship by the events of the war.

Such, Sir, is the immense force which we must now confront by the genius of our institutions and the light of our civilization. How shall it be done? An American citizen can give but one answer. We must pour upon them all the light of our public schools. We must make them intelligent, industrious, patriotic citizens, or they will drag us and our children down to their level. Does not this question rise to the full height of national importance and demand the best efforts of statesmanship to adjust it? Mr. Mann has well said:

"That legislators and rulers are responsible.

"In our country and in our times no man is worthy the honored name of a statesman who does not include the highest practicable education of the people in all of his plans of administration.

"He may have eloquence, he may have a knowledge of all history, diplomacy, jurisprudence, and by these he may claim, in other countries, the elevated rank of a statesman, but unless he speaks, plans, labors at all times and in all places for the culture and edification of the whole people, he is not, he cannot be an American statesman."

Gentlemen who have discussed the bill this morning tell us that it will result in great expense to the government. Whether an enter

prise is expensive or not is altogether a relative question, to be determined by the importance of its object.

Now, what have we done as a nation in the way of expenses? In 1832 we organized a Coast Survey Bureau, and have expended millions upon it. Its officers have triangulated thousands of miles of our coasts, have made soundings of all our bays and harbors, and carefully mapped the shoals, breakers, and coast lines from our northern boundary on the Atlantic to the extreme northern boundary on the Pacific coast. They have established eight hundred tidal stations to observe the fluctuations of the tides. We have expended vast sums in order perfectly to know the topography of our coasts, lakes and rivers, that we might make navigation more safe. Is it of no consequence that we explore the boundaries of that wonderful intellectual empire which incloses within its domain the fate of succeeding generations, and of this republic? The children of to-day will be the architects of our country's destiny in 1900.

We have established an Astronomical Observatory where the movements of the stars are watched, latitude and longitude calculated, and chronometers regulated for the benefit of navigation. For this Observatory we pay one third of a million per annum. Is it of no consequence that we observe the movements of those intellectual lights which shall, in the time to come, be guiding stars in our national firmament?

We have established a Light-House Board who are employing all the aids of science, to discover the best modes of regulating the beacons upon our shores; they are placing buoys as way-marks to guide ships safely into our harbors. Will you not create a light-house board to set up beacons for the coming generation, not as lights to the eye, but to the mind and heart, that shall lead them safely in the perilous voyage of life, and enable them to transmit the blessings of liberty to those who shall come after them?

We have set on foot a score of expeditions to explore the mountains and valleys, the lakes and rivers of this and other countries. We have expended money without stint to explore the Amazon and the Jordan, Chili and Japan, the gold shores of the Colorado and the copper cliffs of Lake Superior; to gather and publish the great facts of science, and to exhibit the material resources of physical nature. Will you refuse the pitiful sum of $13,000 to collect and record the intellectual resources of this country, the elements that lie behind all material wealth and make it either a curse or a blessing?

We have paid three-quarters of a million dollars for the survey of the route for the Pacific railroad, and have published the results at a great cost in thirteen quarto volumes, with accompanying maps and charts. The money for these purposes was freely expended, and now, when it is proposed to appropriate $13,000 to aid in increasing the intelligence of those who will use that great continental highway when it is completed, we are reminded of our debts, and warned against increasing our expenditures. It is difficult to treat such an objection with the respect that always is due in this hall of legislation.

We have established a Patent Office where are annually accumulated thousands of models of new machinery invented by our people. Will you make no expenditure for the benefit of the intelligence that shall stand behind that machinery and be its controller? Will you bestow all your favors upon the engine, and ignore the engineer? I will not insult the intelligence of this House by waiting to prove that money paid for education is the most economical of all expenditure; that it is cheaper to reduce crime than to build jails; that school houses are less expensive than rebellions. A tenth of our national debt expended in public education fifty years ago would have saved us the blood and treasure of the late war. A far less sum may save our children from a still greater calamity.

We expend hundreds of thousands annually to promote the agricultural interests of the country; to introduce the best methods in husbandry. Is it not of more consequence to do something for the farmer of the future than for the farm of to-day?

As man is more precious than soil, as the immortal spirit is nobler than the clod it animates, so is the object of this bill more important than any mere pecuniary interest.

The genius of our government does not allow us to establish a compulsory system of education, as is done in some of the countries of Europe. There are States in this Union, however, which have a lopted a compulsory system, and perhaps that is well. It is for each State to determine. A distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island told me lately that it is now the law in that State that every child within its borders shall attend school, and that every vagrant child sali be taken in charge by the authorities and sent to school. It may be well for other States to pursue the same course; but probably the general government can do nothing of the sort. Whether it has the right of compulsory control or not, we propose none in this bill. But we do propose to use that power, so effective in this country, of letting in light on subjects, and holding them up to the verdict of