Sentinel of the valley. [volume] (Woodstock, Va) 1841-1848, 1845-10-16

that no system OF Internal Improve
ment, no increased facilities of inter-
course and transportation can supply
the want of an established institution
for the general education of the people,
and the purity and perpetui,y of free
Government? Of what use would rail-
roads and canals be to a people who
are too ignorant to improve the natural
advantages they enjoy, and have moth
ing to transport over them' who care
not, and know not how, either to open
for themselves new sources of wealth,
orto improve what they before possess
ed? Of what general benefit have those
works, already completed, been to the
mass of the population of those parts
of the State through which they pass?
How often has the complaint been
made, tina! the rates of Transportation oy-
er them are higher than what the same.
transportation cost before the works.
were begun How many farms do we
see, in passing along those routes,
where the marie lies undug almost up
on the surface, where no attempt4at re-
novation Of the land, or Improvement
IN its culture, is made' but a slovenly
perseverance in the same exhausting
mode Of cultivation, (if it can be cali
led such, sand the only effect which
the Introduction of the road or canal
seems to have on the people, is to in
duce them TO spend more of their time
and money in towns, and less on their
farms than formerly
Now, let the people ofthese regions
of country be educated; and, in the
enlightened minds OF thousands, who
now are worse than useless to them
selves and to the State, you bring to
bear and put IN operation upon, all the
material resources and capabilities Of
the country, either now known or as
yet undiscovered, an eelment, bound
less in its power and its growth, ant
ceaseless in its activity. Among The
drones who needed not this institution,
lis effect may not at first be seem. But
even they will at length feel its infiu-
ence. Those whom poverty stimulates
to exertion, and to whom their parent
State has opened the field of enterprise,
furnishing them with the aids of
knowledge, will be in the midst; and
by their untiring and well directed in
dustry and skill will compel their more
incident neighbors either to rouse them
selves to competition with them in the
march of Improvement or make way for
more enterprising and useful members
of society. Among such population,
works of Internal Improvement would
as inevitably be constructed, where
they were needed, and could be made
proftably, as the pent up mountain
stream finds its way TO the lowlands;
with this advantage, that, being made
where the enlightened Judgment of the
people sees their benefit or necessity,
none would be made, where there was
little or nothing to transport over item;
and the State would sink less money in
wild and impractlcable schemes, con-
cocted by spectators or visionary in
thusiasts, and ending in the ruin of in
dividuals and the embarrassment ofthe
Treasury. Whilst, on the<o one hand,
those who lived on the line of any work
of Internal Improvement, which it would
be expedien: to construct, would, tho
the Legislature should refuse to aid
them, with their own increased means
or with the aid of other capitalists, be
sure to construct it. On the other hand,
by educating the masses throughout
the State, we should use the best, /
might say the only, means ofremoving
those petty, narrow-minded local jeal-
ousies and prejudices, which w-form
an lnsuperable obstacle to the construc-
ton, by the aid of the State, of any
great work for the general good of the
whole State or of any considerable palt
of it. Here, then, is the difference be-
tween The views of Quits and those
of the advocates of immediate and tho-
rough reform in our system of Popular
Education. Both profess to be friend
ly to the promotion of Education and of
a judicious system of Internal Improve
ment in the State. Quits would have
the State embark in grand, or, as he
terms tia sliberolsystem of State works,
an immense and indefinite a.
mount OF money, and at the expense of
the total loss of education TO tens of
of her citizens, who-or, ra-
Their, whose posterity, many generations
hence-are 70 depend On the limited,
remote, contingent and most impsoba-
Die profits and Incidental benefits IL he
derived from the final completion ofhis
system.
We, on the othsrhand, propose, FIRST