The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1861-01-12
G0ufatio mol department.

Educate! educated! sdueats!!! 10 whis-
psred BY the ,ephyrs Of heaven, murmureo
BY the mighty rivers, .hundsred BY the ocean
.urges. Parent, your child is growing up,
its dsstinies are being moulded for life and
forever. Upon you rests the responsibility
Of educating it Alright; and woe TO the par
ent and woe to the child il that sacred trust
is not fulfilled in letter and in spirit. Young
man or ysung woman, your early sdran-
sages have been few, you have known little
Of books or schools, and you are mournfuiiy
regresting that you must pass through life
in ignorance-away with such regrets, begin
to- day to educate. Ne excuses about work
ing on farm, or pushing plane oil day,
sewing shirts or washing dishes. you Ill have
time to study two hours day. Dot, and
in ten years you will be a. learned ss half
the professors in our colleges, and have
gained an inexhaustibls store Of pure en-
iovmens to solace the remainder Of your
lives. Middle aged man or woman, you
were raised in region of country where
schools were like angels visits-you can
read and write, but you do little Of either
family of young immortals are growing
up around you, hungering and shirsting at
ter knowledge. You send them to the pub
lie school and they are learning; but their
school mates, no brighter nor more indus
,rous than they, are outstripping them IN
their studies-and why They have parents
whose educational advantages in youth were
greater than yours, and now those parents
are teaching their little ones at home, Sec
onding the efforts Of the school teacher
and your little boys, your little girls, ambi'
tious to stand as high in their classes as their
mates, come to you imploring your aid in
getting their hard lesson. You are as ambi-
tious as they. The thought that your neigh
boris child is making more rapid advance
ment than yours, stings you to the quick;
and you groan in spirit that you are igno.
rant as you are. Stop reping at once, you
can remedy the evil; open the hoodgatss of
your intellect, and lot the knowledge all
around you pour in upon it. 1t is not too
late. Virgil, the great Roman poet, a, forty,
knew less of letters than you do. Commence
at oree, get your children to help you
many lesson they can teach you, and when
you have mastered it you can understand It
better than they, and in turn, teach il to
them more perfectly. You will make
progress that will astonish yourself, aud
soon be able not only to as siss your chill.
dren in keeping up with their companions
at school,, but will fad sources Of pleasure
opened to you Of which bfeore you had no
conception. Let no one say am ignorant.
but hare not the facilities for educating !
myself. The facilities are all around you
you are not living in the middle ages, but
in the middle of the nineteenth century and |
if you stand like chained slaves, refusing
to shake off the mnnacles which ignorance
has put around you, you deserve to remain
fettered. Progress has taken time by the
forelock ; and, in this fast age, changes are
wrought in the worlds condition in single
decade, which three hundred years ago it
took a century to accomplish. American
men and American women, are, or ought to
be, in the front rank of the advancing army.
The great problem Of self-government has
been given to them for solution. 1t never
will be solved blythe few who are consregated
in our colleges and legislative halls, never.
1t is for the millions who 60 to the ballot
box, the millions who stay at home to mould
the characters of incipient voters, to solve
this problem and they must be educated,
or history will write of them as it has al
ready written of the great republics of the
pass-incompeteat.