The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-07-21
WASHINGTON, ID. G..
For the National Era.
AMERICAN EDUCATION.
BY l.. A HINE.


Announcement of Education at ats Third Ses-
sion, an Cleveland, Ohio, from the 19h to the
22d Of August, 1851.
.. PRELIMINARIEs-u. WHAT is EDUCATIoN?--
Ill REPUBLICAN sCHoLARsHIP-Iv. COLLIE
GIATE EDUCAroN--v. FEMALE EDUCATION
VI. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM.
/. PRELIMINARIES.
The Spirit of the Age All hail What is
the spirit of the Age? Tell US, ye who mouth
the praise so Oft Is it commercial Yea, YER
lily Is it Mormon worship! Undoubtedly. Is
it invention? Behold the fire annihilator, the
static pressure engine, and Solomon's carbonic
acid gas triumphant over steam; steamboats,,
locomotives and telsgraphs, are too old for men,
ton here. Is it conquest! Texas, California,
Cuba, Sandwich, and - Mexico too, may
soon give the answer. Is it reform? Be not
deaf to the answer of the advocates of land re-
form, woman's rights, language reform, rigi-
torouiseu, peace, prison discipline, liberty,
equality, and fraternity socialism, and human
perfectbilty. Is it the advancement Of Sci
ence! Ask Agassiz Siman, Hitchcock
Hall, Foster, Owen, Redfeld, Mitchell, Pierce
Bache, Rogers, and a host of others, who can
convince you, ere the sands of an hour have
fallen, that the past half century has done
more than several whole centuries put tOgeth-
er had previously done.
But what is the Spirit of the Age? There
is something underneath all these mightier
than them all, 10 which is embosomed the glo.
~ Of the present, the hopes for the future, and
the elements Of all human progress. Listen
1t is the Educational Spirit that has so deeply
seated itself in the hearts of all philanthro-
pists, and is to make every man and woman a
priest of nature; and her God, eloquent with
1 /. -,
each man and woman kings of themseigns, self
sovereign in their individual democracy, and
vet beating in unison the same chords of Gov
eminent as they throb through millions of
hearts, Heaven be praised-let all mankind
rejoice Is not this the Spirit Of the Age? Lo,
the Empire State, with more scholars in her
schools than youth under her Jurisdiction
with 800 600 volumes in her school libraries
and Normal Institutes for her teachers 10,
Ohio with her new Constitution, cOnsecrating
the people cause and her frequent Education
al Conventions, full Of enthusiasm; 10, Michi-
gan with her school Libraries, and her adoption
of the great practical doctrine, that the prop
erty of the State shall educate the children of
the State; ia, Kentucky with her Governors
announcing that every draft drawn upon the
people for Education shall be duly honored
10, Louisiana voting half million at once for
this purpose; 10, California and Wisconsin, the
youngest Of the Sovereign Fraternity with am
pie educational capital in prospect, husbanded
with trusty care; 10, oil the Republic beats
high in their course, which is the soul of pro-
gress, the redeemer of mankind, the saviour
from poverty, depravity, and crime.
Such is the Spirit Of the Age, and to this all
other spirits are auxiliary Commerce lays |
her golden treasures Mt her altar, to be offered
in fba Of |
mon scowls as the Spirit of the Age bids him
bow TO the demands of the immortal mind but
he obeys. Invention brings his cOnquests of
power to save the labor of the people, and give
them time for study. Railroads are uniting
tho ocean with the mighty river, the great
lakes with the Southern Gulf and the free in
termingling of distant peoples stimulates the
movement Of mind Telegraphs click to the
touch of n thousand miles distant and II great
thought in Boston, Cincinnati, or New Orleans,
beats instantly through the whole National
heart. Conquest dedicates his territories to
free schools and strikes down the iron gates
that had mterposed between the people, and
the temple of knowledge. Peace calls for
schools, because, as Solomon of old would say,
they are fools who fight Reform lifts up her
loude5t shout for every advancement that is
made in universal enlightenment. Such is the
Spirit Of the Age 1t received its birth in that
pregnant sentence of Locke's that of all man.
kind we make nine parts in ten on what they
are good or bad, by their education )" and its
growth was accelerated by the massive an
nOuncement of Burke, that Education is the
chief defence Of nations which Chalmers
declares to be zone Of the mightest of those
sentences or oracular sayings that have ever
fallen from any Of the seers or sages of our
land"
But the pilgrims are the fathers of the sys
tenn of popular Democratic American Educa.
ton They opened the doors of the academy
and the college to the people, and now the pro-
gress of civilization in all nations is determined
by the number Of school houses they contain
The Pilgrims were Bible men, holding it to be
the first duty of all to read the Bbe-in Oppo-
sltiOn to the Catholics who believed that the
Book should not be crOteric, (exposed to the
yulgar) but eS0teric confined to the indoctri-
mated The Pilgrims repudiated this idea of
sacred mysteries entertained by Plato, Arts
totle, and PythagOras, and transmitted through
Rome to modern times and said the most sa-
cred things should be administered unto all
men-in short the Bible should be read uni
yersally. But Rome replied that this could
not ne, Tor the people were unlettered, and
could not decipher the lea Scriptum. True,
rCjoined the Puritan, but we'll soon answer
that argument by insttuting schools in every
nelghborhood, and compelling the parents to
send their children 1t demanded powerful
motive to establish so vast no beneficial an en-.
terprise and that motive was found in reg-
Gus progress in hostility to Rome But no mat.
ter the Puritan prevailed, and the Catholic is
now competing with him for the best common
schools! In scarcely any other quarter can we
hnd equal advancement Not even has discoy-
cry and invention greater achievements to
boast than Education. Every year adds in
terest and zeal to the cause as the proceedings
:" The late Cleveland Convention abundantly
prove.
Happy was the remark of Bishop Potter the
President Of the Association, that the Conven-
ton had assembled in the name of Progress
we have come to proclaim the progressive
spirit that should animate the Association we |
have organized. We stand where fifty years
ago, no voice was heard proclaiming the pro-
gress Of tho race Now we are in a beautiful
city OF twice ten thousand souls!
we come To proclaim that the founders Of this
Association havo hearts beating high with
progress. But when we come in this spirit, we
stand also to indicate our interests in the
cause of conservatism While We are seeking
unattainable good, We would not ignore the
past nor part with one of the blessings it has
transmitted" Happy, too, was his reference
10 cotemporaneous conventions assembled on
the same day in other parts of the country and
the world, "While in the great State Of Ohio
the Educational Association is in session, Sci
ence has assembled her votaries at the capital
of the Empire State;' and across the water
all nations are congregated to display the tri-
umphs Of Peace, and to lay more deeply the
foundations of its perpetuity" Verify, the
world does move, and il is Education that makes
it march But