Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1867-05-30
tion, and will preserve its liberty by
knowing how to use it,"

proving their condition pervades the
people, intelligence and morality are
diffused among all classes, 80 as to
inspire justice On the one hand, and
on the other the patience required by
peaceful reforms, steady progress Is
insured but if we maintain educa-
ton, wealth and selishness IN the
upper classes, ignorance, poverty and
envy in the lower, we must expect
bloody revolutions"
"What has been said may seem
commonplace, for scarcely any on.
now boasts the advantages OF ignor-
ance. Ministers and deputies, books
and journals, proclaim with one &C
cord the absolute necessity of edu-
cation but it is doubtful whether
mems minds are prepared to make
the necessary sacrifices to accom-
plish the work. That we may not
deceive ourselves in this matter, 1t
is profitable to study the methods
adopted by those nations that have
most nearly approached the end in
view. A single example will show
at what cost education has been diff
fused among a people.
"There are, | think, four nations
that can say with laudable pride that
all their citizens can read North
Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and
the United States, but only in the
last one named does every one read
for information, for diversion, to be-
come better acquainted with public
affairs, to find out how to conduct
business better and earn more money
or to learn more concerning the great
truths of religion.
"There is twice as much printing
there as elsewhere, and the Union
alone consumes as much paper as
France and England together. Ac-
cording to statistics, the number Of
subscriptions to journals divided by
the number of inhabitants gives
more than one subscription to fam.
lily.
Daily papers are issued by the
hundred thousand copies, and some
weeklies have a circulation of four
hundred thousand. All travellers
who visit America are impressed with
the fact that everybody-the COM
mon people as well as others-is oc-
cupied in reaiing.
In the spring of this year | visi-
ted the noble federal frigate, the Nj
agara, which lay at anchor in the
harbor of Antwerp. Every sailor
who was not on duty had book,
magazine, or journal in his hand.
In Europe on leaving school, or when
young man enters the army, the
statement is made that he can or can
not read a few lines but this SUI
perfcial knowledge of the printed
letter is generally of little advantage
to him he does not use it. In A
merica reading is daily habit, the
source of public prosperity, and the
essential condition of the permanence
of republican institutions.
"The common school, all Ameri-
cans confess, is the foundation Of the
state-the true bond of the Union.
Free to all, open to al, receiving the
children of all classes and all faiths,
it obliterates social distinctions, soft
ems religious animosities, eradicates
prejudices and antipathies, and in
spires each heart with love for the
comman country, and a regard for
free institutions. 1t is amazing to
see the mass of foreigners annually
introduced by emigration so soon alb
sorbed into American nationality. 1t
is the school which, from the first
generation, imprints upon them the
seal of national manners, imparts to
them the prevailing ideas, and rem
ders them capable of exercising q
citizens rights. Without the school
the Union would long ago have ceas-
ed to exist, rent by factions, ingulfed
beneath the waves of ignorance con-
tinually flowing into it from Germa-
ny and especially from Ireland. Re
cent calculations show that if all
immigration had ceased in 1910, the
free population of the United States,
instead of amounting in January,
1864, to 29,902,000, would have
reached only ten and a half millions.
The immigrants and their descendants
constitute then two thirds of the pop
ulation 1t is due to education that
this primitive stock, 50 inferior ia
number to the foreign element, has
been able to assimilate them and
communicate to them the peculiar
characteristics that distinguish the
old Anglo-Saxon and Puritan race.
"How often during the late civil
war was it predicted that the West
would separate from the Atlantic
States, and that California would
form an independent republic on the
shores of the Pacific !! In fact the
friends of the North were not with
out fear of this result.
"Those distant States might have