The Minnesota pioneer. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. Territory) 1849-1855, 1849-08-02

Lay the Foundation Firm.
A State is aptly compared to an edifce.-
First is the foundation. That, at least, must
be solid. To lay the corner stones of Min
nesota, is duty which devolves upon us.
What, then, is the true basis Of free and
happy State! Education and religion
Let every man, woman and child be taught
what it is right to do and the necessity of
doing right. Children are growing up in
our midst. They must be educated. No
matter if ours be but IN infant State, we
must haye schools and every child must be
educated, No parent must think Of rearing
his child to run at large and compete with
MI the intelligence Of this age, without
sharpening his intellect and teaching him
how to live, what to do and how to act his
part in the world. Without virtue aud in
telligence to stimulate and to direct the en-
ergies Of our people, what will the natural
wealth of Minnesota avail US? our rivers,
our forests, our fertile lands? What is it
that works the difference between Ohio,
smiling now like garden under the hand
of willing labor, or Wisconsin, already in
the foremost rank Of agricultural States,
and the States of Mexico and of the South
American Republics? Virtue and intelli-
gence-the school house--the gospel-the
newspaper-these are the things they want
land wanting which, they can never enjoy
the blessings Of good government or the
happiness of peaceful, virtuous, well-regu-
lated homes. We hope that Education,
universal education, the common school,
will receive the early attention Of our Legis-
lature. Congress has been liberal to Min
nesota. We are to have double portion
Of public lands for school purposes. Our
Delegate did wellsto take care for that
We can better spare all the territory that
ought to have been ours, east of the Saint
Croix river, than to he deprived of the
great blessing Of education for all our chill
dren. We subscribe to the sentiment of
Horace Mann, who says:-" Let us thank
Heaven that there are standards Of great
ness besides vastness Of territory; and other
forms of wealth besides mineral deposits or
agricultural exuberance. Though every
hill were Potosi though every valley, like
that of the Nile, were rank with fairness, yet
might nation he poor 10 the most desper-
ate sense; benighted in darkness of barbar-
ism and judgment-stricken of Heaven for
its sins. A State has local boundaries which
it cannot rigbfnIIy transcend; but the realm
Of intelligence, and the sphere Of charity,
the moral domain in which the soul can ex-
pand and expatiate, are illimitable-vast
and boundless rs the omnipresence Of the
Being that created them. Worldly treasure
is of that nature that rust may copfupt, or
the moth destroy, or thieves steal; but even
upon the earth, there are mental treasures
which are unapproachab|e by fraud, impreg-
nable to violence, and whose value does not
perish, but is redoubled with using. A
State, then, is not necessarily fated to insig-
nifcance because its dimensions are narrow,
nor doomed to obscurity and powerIessness,
because its numbers are few. Athens was
small; yet low as were her moral aims, she
lighted up the whole earth as a lamp lights
PIP a temple. Judea was small; but her
prophets and teachers were and will contn-
ne to be the guides of the world. The mar
row strip of half cultivated land, that lies
between her eastern and western boundaries
is not Massachusetts; but her noble and in
corruptible men, her pure and exalted wo-
men, the children in her schools, whose daily
lessons are the preludes and rehearsals of
the great duties Of life, and the prophecies
Of future eminence-these are the State"