Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-11-12

mocrat just before ordering Lord Says head to be
struck off,
~ am the bosom that must sweep the court
clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most
traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in
erecting grammar-school; and whereas, before our
forefathers had no other books but the score and
the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used and
contrary to the King his crown and dignity thou
hast built a paper mill. 1t will be proved to thy
face that thou hast about thee that usually talk
of noun and verb, and such abominable words
as no Christian ear can endure to hear"
The ingenious Samuel Butler pertinently remarks
on this proclivity of some men to decry education
that it proceeds from desire to bring down all
other men, whom they have no possibility of coming
near any other way, to an equality with themselves
that no man may be thought to receive any advan-
tage BY that which they, with all their confidence,
dare not pretend to. 1t strikes us there is some
force in the suggestion
But after our colleges and academies" shall
have spent all their arrows against Democracy there
will always be found even within theirwals, con-
siderable number who are never contaminated by
the literary attainments and assumed superior
information Of their preceptors. To say nothing
of that crop which, the French proverb tells us,
never fails, there will always be found in every col
lege and academy respectable proportion of
pupils, who, either from natural stoidity Of in
telect or from an instructive love of lazness are
never in the least danger of having their minds
Corrupted by learning, and being thus beguiled
from the simplicity of Democratic doctrine Gov
johnson, as it seems to u.s. should find consolation
in this consideration, and should let it go far to mi
tigate his apprehensions concerning these hotbeds
of Federalism. A still more encouraging symptom
in favor of the perpetuy Of " the Democratic party
proper may be gathered by Gov. johnson from the
statistics of the late census for the State of Tennes
see. If the number of persons over twenty-one
years of age who neither read write has in
creased over the figures of the last census in the
same proportion as every other interest in that
fourishng State, it may be safely calculated that
Tennessee will long continue to have Democrats
enough for Seed in spite of all that her colleges and
academies are doing to supplant the ncophytes in
the faith. At any rate, there is no immediate dan
ger of the extinction of Democracy from the general
diffusion of education
But perhaps Governor Johnson is warmly in ia
vor of g common schools" and it is only against
high academies, colleges and universities that he
has any objection to allege. We know there are
those among us who are affected in behalf Of popu-
lar education with just such an idiosyncrasy. This
idea seems to US however, about as reasonable as
that of the municipal statesman who should, when
our great aqueduct shall be completed, be strongly
in favor of hydrant in every mans house, but
most resolutey opposed to all large receiving and
distributing reservoirs as involving wasteful and
ridiculous excess of expenditure. Or it resembles
the sagacity of the political economist who should
argue that retail stores all proper enough in
their way, but that wholesale houses, large import
ing establishments and producing manufactures
were nuisances calling aloud for abatement.
Butperhaps Gov johnson opposes the higher cul-
turc of I" academies and colleges" on the assump-
ton that it ncapactates the learner for the cheer
! full prosecution of mechanic arts and handicraft
pursuits. We have heard this argument sometimes
adduced against the theory of general education,
and it is in order to parry the force which some
conceive it to possess that we have seen such re-
peated experiments in "manuallabor schools"
peoples colleges" &C., where the pupil is stimuli
taneously taught the value of education and the in
trinsic dignity, of labor" by sweating over his
lexicon one hour and his potato-patch the next For
ourselves we are not troubled by any such fears,
that collegiate education will cause the mechanic
to throw aside his sledge-hammer his lap-stone.
And even if we deemed this an evil we should have
little heart to hope for its sensible mitigation by the
abolition of colleges, when we see SO many forsake
these useful implements of their profession from
quite other reasons than because they too highly
educated to range with humble livers in content"
But we have dwelt so long on the genius of De-
mocracy being opposed to education that we have
scarcely left ourselves any to comment on its
divine mission, as SO eloquently unfolded by Gov.
johnson a task, however, which VIC the more will
ingly forego because we are not suTc that we per-
fecty apprehend ell that the speaker, under the in
fuence of a fine phrensy," gives uttcrance to on
this subject The darkness with which this portion
of his speech is yelled is nothing more, presume,
than that mystic sublimity which has always been
observed to tincture the language Of those who are
appointed to interpret the counsels of Heaven. At
first We tempted to believe that this obscurity
arose from our lack Of Democracy, since Gov. j..
assures us that it is this principle which enables
man to "reason correctly" and which constitutes
the intelligence Of man." This much, however we
have been able to make out that democracy and
the divinity of man and the same thing, and
that the especial function of "the Democratic par