Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1856-05-14
ORIGINAL PAPERS,
N0-~Oo1--~~~.~-~y~.~-~1~
Written for the Spirit Of the Age.
POPULAR EDUCATION.
Dedicated 10 he Social Circle"
by RAVENSwOOD.
knowledge is power.-BAcoN.
BY RAvENswooD.


by RAvENswooD.
Knowledge is power-BAcoN.
It must be gratifying to every friend of
humanity to reflect upon the great progress
which Education has made of late years,
in every quarter of the world Indeed,
knowledge Of every kind has lately been
increased to a degree that would hardly
have been anticipated half century ago.
It's advancement has been wonderful. The
history Of Education for the last twenty
five years seems more like the invention
of some moon-stfuck poet or the fanciful
dream Of some old Greek rhapsodist, than
an array Of sober realities. Old things
have passed away, all things have become
new. We live in the most glorious, the
most eventful, the most enlightened age
the world has ever seen. We have been
thrown upon time, not indeed rendered no.
table to future generations by romantic
wars, or embellished by the illustrious deeds
of departed chivalry; but what is infinite
ly more important, our age is strongly
marked by a tendency to progression in all
thing5-PTogress in Science and Art, in
Religion, in Politics, and in all that tends
to improve and promote mans welfare or to
ensure his happiness hereafter.
II is true we have not the poetry or the
delectable romance of by-gone ages-we
have no Chaucers, no Canterbury pilgrim
ages, no crusades, no light-hearted trou-
badours, no splendid tournaments, no steel
clad knights, no beIeagured castles, nor
have we any of that grandeur which was
80 peculiar to the ancients but ours is
an intellectual grandeur. If the ancients
surpassed us in feats Of bodily strength,
if they were superior to US in physical
force, we are undoubtedly superior to them
in intellectual vigor and power.
The mind, the intellect, the understand
ing is TO the moderns, what the body and
It's function were to the ancients. We
arc meta physical the ancients merely
physical. Their dominion Of thought was
narrow, circumscribed and limited. The
apparently insurmountable barriers which
inclosed them were never attempted to b,
oYerthrown, and what reason could not ex
pose, fancy painted in her gaudiest an
most delusiye colors. They were timorou
in their search after truth They were a
fraid to venture far out upon the grea
kanndlass nooau-. of 4rptI ~, Esen. US, !, tho
Andiaithfully has that task been performed
mists of error which oxer6nnea the ds5ff dShf
ages, the clouds of ignorance, the gloom OF
superstition, which for so many centuries
enveloped the intellectual world aud dark
ened the minds of men, have all been dis
PEELED, dispersed and cleared away by tn,
genial rays Of the rising sun of knowledge
The once extensive domains of ignoranc
have been diminished. The proud castle
of superstition, with all their turrets an
outposts, have been assailcd and demolisI
cd by religion allied with knowledge
Superstition, that baneful ingrediel
which enters so largely into the compos
tion Of human nature, has been we'll nil
uprooted from the very foundation of soci
ty, whose beauties it tended so much
mar, and whose mighty fabric it so mu
dis6ured and disgraced by its thousand a,
one revolving deformities.
Beneath the full blaze of the light
knowledge many of those absurd custol
notions and practices which obtained to
marvellous an extent in the ancient di
have become obsolete, disregarded and
rided, and are now looked upon by the
telligent portion of ofmankind, as the rapiC
decreasing remains Of barbarism, and |
sediment of pagan institutions, destir
ere long to be swept away entirely by t
march Of civilization.
The ghoules and semi-demons which
tested the grave yards of the 18th and Ii
centuries, have deservedly ceased to hi
aplaco in the imaginations of men.
theeo philosophical times, there is scare
anything that Co.. cv"ite wonder or ere
astonishment in the minus -ba m
vulgar or ignorant. Now a-days, eve
thing is explained and traced up to its
cause. The goblin which SO long haun
Tudor Castle-the ghost which for so m
years infested Hollywood house, have
since ceased to be object of fear or won
The absurd beliefs in astrology, sore
necromancy and divination, are gradu
diving out before the influence of kn
edge; and though entertained and ver
ted in some benighted parts of the We
they will soon altogether cease to exls
So great is the influence of Education
such are the inestimable advantages aecr
from widespread and general dissen
ton Of knowledge.
anu IL IS periecJly ha'uIal " 1T
why are we so dissimilar to the ancic
Why is our condition so much better
thcirs2 What has wrought such o
change in Science, in Art, in Literatul
Morals, in the science of governmel
Philosophy, Astronomy and Mathema
What adequate cause has effected S
general revolution in all these, sine
DAYS Of Homer, of Herodotus, of Al
der, of. Thucydides, of SOlon and
of Hesiod and Pbocion Since the
when iunumerable victims smoked
the Pagan affairs Of Greece and Ror
when the propitiating odors of fra
censc ascended to false deities?
Why have the once universally W
ped gods Of Pagan and heathen m
fallen from their lofty pedestals, al
minple with the slave-trodden dust
graded Egypt, Of the once proud
perial, but now benighted Persia,
native city Of Dcmosthenes and Per