Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-05-06
seIf-Gover n,,,cnt.


MIL was Lidllc W NC ludJ
was as much the Divine Idea of Creation, as
that birds should fly, and fish swim. Had
not a single man ever controlled himself, and
not a single nation been self governed, the
truth would still be the same that mans ma
ture requires him to govern himself, and that
where by passion or Ignorance he actW not, or
where by restrictive violence he cannot, he
comes short ofthe end for which he was Great
ed. This is fundamental in such sense, that
a man that is not free to do as he will is not
man but the remnants of one.
A human being half educated, governed
from without, receiving his rights from the
hands of rulers as charities and free missives,
is no more the creature that God meant in
man, than Chmaman's tree dwarfed in a
hower-pot is Gods idea of a venerable oak.
A nation of inbecile men governed is certain
ly better than if ungoverned; but either way
do not indicate Gods creative design.
The utmost growth and the utmost self
government are the two constituent elements
of education. All educations must look to
self governments as their end. All educa-
tions are to be judged by their capacity to pro-
duce self-government. The man that does
not come to that is a failure; the civil govern
ment that does not begin and end in that is a
failure.
l lay it down as the sill and foundation of
social truth, that man has a right to the use
of every faculty that God has placed within
him; that he has a right to develop them to
their utmost power; that he is so created that
all his powers fully carried out, will be har-
monious with themselves and that each
man, developed harmoniously with himself
i. G., elf-government will be in harmony
with his fellow-man; and that self govern
ment i'll the individual is the foundation OF
elf-government in the State; and that the
greater the whole power of the individual the
easier is sef-government, and the more entire
the liberty of self-government, the more per-
feet will be its reflection and consequence, to
civil law and general government.
Let it be remarked that the pyramid stands
not upon the right Of men to do as they please,
but upon the right and duty of men to self
control. BY self-control, l mean that volun-
tary ordering of a mans powers which shall
give them the greatest possible activity and
liberty, with the most perfect harmony among
themselves. That order is not left to each
ones caprice; tits fixed, and revealed both in
Nature and Scripture When the human soul
opens towards God, reverently loving the
whole mind of its own self, by the necessity of
its creation, falls into an adjustment that gives
to each faculty its truest and fullest power and
liberty, and in that liberty also its most per-
feet harmony.
Men who are thus deyeloped will dwell to-
oetber barmon;ouslv the more nowerfnI the
Individual the more nowerfnl will he society.
neither will there he a eonsp;racv felt betwaen
the Individual GOOD and the nnblie GOOD =
For the last viii be but the united voice Of the
former. as the thunder OF the waves Is hut the
united song of single drops. rolling their over
flowing anthem round and round the world.
Perhaps the force of these views will be felt
better. ii we analyze the opposite ones. and
contrast them.
II Is usually supposed that man by nature
Is a wait. drifting hither and thither bv the
force Of circumstances. and without determin-
ing force of his own. That man was made to
Be governed; that liberty is only what is left
after all needed restrictions are imposed; that
the soul is formed with powers whose full ex-
pansion and freest ut-acting is inconsistent
with social peace and civil government. That
the good Of the whole requires all men to be
pared and cut down; and that single men, in
the fabric Of society, compared with what they
would be if fully free. are like timber in houses
and ships, compared with trees growing in
pastures and forests no longer rooted and
branched with sturdy hold, stalwart trunk,
and brave swinging branches, that sing in the
zephyr, and clap their hands in the storm; but
rotten sis, posts, clap boards shingles, elects,
and pins.
Thus practically, the liberty of the individ-
ual is deduced from the power of the State
A man is, not 10Th God ordained scitkie him
but what is left, after the civil axe has branch
ed and heWeo hlm' ooclety is not harmonl-