The weekly American banner. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1855-18??, 1855-11-09
MACAULEY ON POPULAR EDU-
CATION.

This Is my argument. IL 10 tue duty oil Gov.
ernment to protect our persons and property
from danger. The gross ignoranue Of the COM
mon people is principle cause Of danger to our
persons and proderty. Therefore IL is the du-
ty of the G0Aernment to take care that the
common people shall not be grosslv ignorant.
And what is the alternative! II is universally
allowed that, by some means, Government
must protect our persons and property. If you
take away education, what means do yon leave!
You leave means such as only necessity can
justify, means which inflict q fearful amount Of
pain, not only on the guilty, but on the inno-
cent who are connected with the guilty. You
have guns and bayonets, stocks and whipping
posts, tread mills and solitary cells, psnal colo
MES and gibbets. See then how the case st tands
Hear is an end, which, as we all agred, CIV
ernments are bound to attain. There fs only
two ways Of attaining it. One of those ways
is by making better and wiser and happier; the
other way il by making thom infamous and
miserable. Can II be doubted which way we
ought to prefer? II is not strange-is it not
strange Il not aImost incredible, that pious
md benevolent men should gravely propound
the doctrine that the magistrate IS bound 70
punish, and at tho same time bound not q
teach;
My confidence in my opinion is strengthened
when recollect that I hold that opinion in
common with all the greatest lawgivers, states
men and political philosophers of all nations
and ages, with all the most illustrious champi-
ons OF avil and spiritual reedom, and especial
~ with those men whose names were once held
n the highest yenerasion by the Protestant
Dissenters of England. might cite many Of
the most venerable names OF the OLD world, but
| I wonhi.rather cite ths example OF that country
which tha supporters of the Voluntary system
here are always Recommending to US as = pat
tern,
Go lack to the days when the little society
witch has expanded into the opulent, cnlighten-
ed commonwealth of Massachusetts began to
exist. Our modern Dissenters will scarely,
think, venture to speak contumelously Of those
Pr:ans whose spirit Laud and his commission
| Court could not subdue; of those Puritans who
were willing to leave home and kindred, and ell
the comforts and retinements Of civilized
to cross the ocean, to fix their abodes in forests
am ,ng Wild beasts and wild men, rather than
commit the sin Of performing, in tbs House o.
God, one gesture which they believed displeas-
| ING to him. Did those brave exiles think It IN
/ consistent with civil or religious nedon that
the State should take charge Of the education,
4 No, sir: one Of the earliest laws enacted by the
1 number Of fifty houses should appoint one e
3 teach all children tc read and write and thai
every township Of one hundred houses shoule
i set up grammar school. Nor haze the de-
q scendants Of those wins have made this law evel
ceased te provide the means Of public instruc
{ ton. Nor is the doctrine coufned te New Eng
land. Educate the people was the hrst 40
monit;on addressed by Penn to the colony whicl
! he founded. Educate the people" was tn
legacy Of Washington to the nation which p
. had saved. Educate the people, was the un
lceasing exhortatien Of Jefferson; and ! quot
jefferson with peculiar pleasure, because. Of q
I the eminent men TINT ever lived, Adam 6m;t
not excepted, jefferson was the one who mos
abhorred everything like meddling on the pal
g Governments. Yet the chief business .of b
T a,er thirty years was to establish good systeI
: Iof State educatien Ii Virginia.
$1,000 ~~-- z - Tss~,sA fnrsrA