St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1861-02-28
Goutational.
EDUCATE THE MASSES.

Educate educate . educate -. is
whispered by the zephyrs Of heaven,
murmurcd by the mighty rivers, thun-
dcred 10y the ocean surgcs. Parent,
your Child is growing up, its dcstinics
are being moulded for life and forever
Upon you rests the responsibility of
educating it Alright ; and woe to the
parent and woe to the child if that sa-
cred trust is not fulfilled in letter and
spirit. Young man or young woman,
your carly advantages have been few,
you have known little of books or
schools, and you are mournfulIy re-
GREETING that you must pass through
life i'll ignorancc-away with such re-
grcts, begin to-day to educate. No
excuse about working on a farm, or
pushing a plane all day, sewing shirts
or washing dishes, you all have time
to study two hours day Do it, and
in ten years you will be as learned rs
half the professors in our colleges,
and have gained an ineXhaustiblc
store OF pure enjoyment to solacc the
remainder Of your lives. Middle aged
man or woman, YOU were raised III a
region of country where schools were
like angels visits-yOu can read and
write, but you do little Of cither--a
family of young immortals are grow
ing up around You, hungering and
thIrsting after knowledge You send
them to the pnblic school and they are
learning but their school-mates, no
brighter nor more Industrious than
they, are outstripping them in their
studies--and why They have pa
rents whose educational advantages in
youth were greater than yours, and
now those parents are teaching their
little ones ut home, seconding the cf-
forts of the school-teacher and your
little boys, Your little girls, ambitious
to stand as high in their classes as
their mates, come to you imploring
your aid in getting their hard lesson.
You are as ambitious as they. The
thought that your ncighbor's child is
making more rapid advancement than
yours, stingS you to the quick and
you groan in spirit that you are igno-
rant as you are. Stop repining at
once, You can remedy the evil open
the iloodgatos OF your intellect, and
let the knowledge all around you pour
in upon it. 1t is not too late. Virgil,
the great Roman poet, at forty, knew
less of letters than you do. Commence
at once, get your children to help you
may lesson they can teach you,
and when you have mastered it you
can understand it better than they, and
in turn, teach it to them more perfect,
ly. You will make a progress that
will astonish yourself, and soon be
able not on y to assist your children
in keeping up with their companions
at school, but will find sources ofpleas-
ure opened to you Of which before you
had no conception. Let no one say
am ignorant, but have not the facilities
for educating myself. The facilities
are all around you-y0u are not living
in the middle ages, but in the middle
of the nineteenth century and II you
stand like chained slaves, refusing tc
shake off the manaclcs which igno
rance has put around you, you deserve
to remain tettered. Progress has ia
ken time by the forelock +; and, i'll thi;
/ fast age, changes are wrought in the
worlds condition in single decade
which three hundred years ago it tool
Il century to accomplish. American
men and American women, are, o.
ought to be in the front rank o
the advancing army. The grea
problem of Self-govcrnment ha:
been given to them for solution. /
never will be solved by the few VIII,
are congregated in our colleges anl
legislative halls, never. 1t is for th'
millions who go to the ballot-box, tn,
millions who stay at home to moulC
the character of incipient voters, t
solve this problem and they must b.
, educated, or history will write Of then
, as it has already written of the grca
republics Of the past incompetent