The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-12


would, therefore, be profane to doubt that the |
Congress Of party Of great moral ideas
should be able, when seated upon their thrones |
in the Capitol to direct with ease and felicity |
all the affairs Of that portion of the terraaue-
GUS globe which owns their rule and demina- |
tion. Indeed, the devout partisan NAV ftlv |
question whether these our earthly rulers
have sufficient occupation for their vast and
varied faculties in those matters already sub
jected to their control, and whether they do
not stand in most distressing need of larger
areas of sovereignty, more multitudinous and
complicated concerns of men for that ample
exhibition of themselves and their powers
which should justify their works and ways to
the sons of men.
That splendid advocate, the late Mr.. Rufus
ChOate, in an Grafton on ''Deliberatve Elo-
quenoe as affected by Revolutionary Crises"
after celebrating the praises of Demosthenes,
and of Cicero, and Of Adams as the orators OF
nations in the agony of death or birth, lamented
that Webster should have fallen upon quiet
times, worlds long peace, so that the depths
OF his great nature were never wholly stirred
nor all the thunders of his eloduence aroused,
as they would have been by some like crisis at
nations cradle or its grave. If by such in
terror things as these we may illustrate supe-
rior themes, permitted TO us also be the doubt
whether the calm Stevens, the dispassionate
Boutwell,, the sagacious Kelley, the serene
Shellabarger, the pure Sprague, and the
wise Wade and Van Winkfe have had
or ever can have, their perfect and
complete display, oribbed, cabined, and CON
fined as they are within the limits upon
their legislative action set by the present
Constitution and the custom of the several
States of the Union themselves to do what
hitherto they have supposed themselves bet
ter able to do than any other for them. Those
larger movements of the unfettered mind, to
which these our earthly sovereigns are equal
what room for them is there in the manage
ment of a paltry two or three billions of debt
in the selection of fifteen or sixteen thousand
subjects of taxation in the reconstruction of
ten discrowned once sovereign States, in
tightening the burdens of our industry, and
unfettering the wings of our commerce, in
composing the strifes of a gigantic civil
war, in opening to the black race of the South
the paths of its progress to fitness for citizen
ship, or averting from the Indian races of the
Far West the provoked or unprovoked calami-
ties of an exterminating war. These matters
indeed, would exhaust the craftsmanship and
satisfy the ambition of any sovereign in the
Old World, as they would have taxed the
faculties and enlarged the fame of those who
founded and those who reared this wonder of
the New. But the nation which lost when
Webster died, acomplete and perfect eloquence
for the crisis of its regenerating throes, has
happily let loose from her teeming womb
statesmen superior to every exigency of it's
diplomacy, Omniscient for all its palingenetic
legislation, capably indifferent to all the dan
gers of its wars, and supremely prescient of
all the perils of its finance.
Therefore, lest haply wisdom die with us
for lack of ample room and verge enough, let
us rejoice that these superior beings with
whom heaven has so kindly blessed our latter
days are not to become extinct for lack of de-
velopment, nor impotent for want of room to
exercise all their monstrous powers.
In assuming the education of the rising
seventy millions of young Americans of the
next two or three decades, all the wisdom of
the Senate and House of Representatives in
Congress assembled may find employment for
its unexhausted capacities and faculties un-
evoked. Their Commissioner of Education is
now engaged, we are told, in transmitting
circulars to Governors of States calling for the
requisite information in regard to their educa-
tiOnal interests" Superhuous and unneces-
sary toll Are not all things of the circum-
ference known to the centre Does the sun
receive light from the planets, or they from
him Let not the Commissioner vex these
lesser orbs with demands for light. Let him
rather wait till the winter solstice and then
behold how light and knowledge shall stream
from the Capitol, instructing the Governors
and General Assemblies of our national con-
stellation not only with all needed ''informa-
tion in regard to the educational interests of
their several States" but also with boundless
intelligence upon matters hitherto undreamed
Of in their local and narrow philosophy.
Our youths, in their schOol-boy days alone,
these governors and general assemblies have
directed the education Of But Congress, be-
ginning, as their unsubordinated Commits
sioner says, with the District of Columbia ''as
point Of commencement on the education of
the country" shall direct the evolution of the
infant mind from the cradle to the grave.
For is not all life an education, and does it
not begin at the cradle, and where does it end
short of the grave Trees incline as twigs are
bent, and what more supremely concerns our
rising race than that their education should
fall into proper hands at the very clipping of
the umbilical cord : The Fortieth Congress
sees its opportunity, and knows its duty.
Hereafter let nurses and matrons be at peace,
and schoolmasters and tutors rest their per-
| turbed spirits. An act of Congress shall here
after measure their swaddling clothes, and
| provide regulation pins for the diapers of all
the children of the republic, apportion due
| doses Of Liebig's lactine, containing protein
and all other essential elements of food,
prescribe the diameter of teething rings,
the dimensions of the national CRADLE and the
height of the only American baby-jumper.
| Two-thirds of both Houses by Joint resolu-
| tion, suited thus to escape some too paternal
| Presidents veto, shall ordain the due amount
| of spanking, to be administered by a national
| police, abolish congenital strabismus, and do
| away with bandy-legged infants by penal en-
actments. Thus, ,nurtured with a tender care,
every child of freedom will safely and happily
| pass from infancy and childhood to blooming
| youth. Here too some act entitled an act to
amend the acts of all our forefathers shall