Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-04-13

tons and ages, with all the most illustrious |
champions of civil and spiritual freedom,
and especially with those men whose names
were once held in the highest veneration
by the Protestant Dissenters of England.
/ might cite many of the most venerable
names of the old world /; but would rather
cite the example of that country which the
supporters of the voluntary system here
are always recommending to us as a pat
tern. Go back to the days when the little
society which has expanded into the opu-
lent and enlightened commonwealth of
Massachusetts began to exist. Our modern
Dissenters will scarcely, think, venture
to speak contumeliously of those Puritans,
whose spirit Laud and his High Commits
sion Court could not subdue, of those Puri-
tans who were willing to leave home and
kindred, and all the comforts and refine
ments of civilized life, to cross the ocean, to
fix their abode i'm forests among wild beasts
and wildUmen rather than commit the sin
of performing, in the house of God, one
gesture which they believed to be displeas-
ing to Him. Did those brave exiles think
it inconsistent with civil or religious free
dom that the State should take charge of
the education Of the people? No, sir; one
Of the earliest laws enacted by the Puritan
coionists was that every township, as soon
as the Lord had increased it to the number
of fifty houses, should uppoint one to teach
all children to write and read, and that
| set up a grammar school. Nor have the
descendants of those who made this law
ever ceased to hold that the public authori-
| ties were bound to provide the means of
| public instruction. Nor is this doctrine
| confined to New England. Educate the
| people " was the first admonition addressed
| by Penn to the colony which he founded.
Educate the people" was the legacy Of
Washington TO the nation which he had
saved Educate the people" was the un-
ceasing eXhortation of Jefferson and /
quote Jefferson with peculiar pleasure, be-
cause of all the eminent men that have ever
! lived, Adam Smith himself not excepted
Jefferson was the one who most abhorred
everything like meddling on the part of
governments. Yet the chief business of
his later years was to establish good sys-
tenn of State education in Virginia.
= y
Now sir, it seems to me that, on the
same principle on which government
ought to superintend and to reward the SOL
der, government ought to superintend and
to reward the schOolnnaster. / mean, of
course, the schoOlmaster of the common
people. That his calling Is useful, that his
calling is necessary, it will hardly be de-
MED. Yet it is clear that his services will
not be adequately remunerated If he is left
to be remuneratcd by those whom he
teaches or by the voluntary contributions
of the charitable. Is this disputed? Look
at the facts. You tell US that schools will
multiply and flourish exceedingly, if the
government will only abstain from inter-
fering with them? Has not the govern
ment long abstained from interfering with
them? Has not everything been left
through many years-to individual exer-
ton? If il were true that education, like
, trade, thrives most where the magistrate
meddles least, the common people of Eng.
land would now be the best educated in
the world. Our schools would be model
, schools. Every one would have well
chosen little library, excellent maps, q
/, small but neat apparatus for experiments in
, natural philosophy. A grown person una
BILE to read and write would be pointed al
, like Giant O'Brien or the Polish Count
! Our schoolmasters would be as eminently
, expert in all that relates to teaching as oul
. cutters our cottOnspinners, our engineer
: are allowed to be In their respective call
= ings. They would, as a class, be held il
: high consideration; and their gains would
be such that 1t would be easy to find meI
:, of respectable character and attainment
] lto FIJI ap:vaeancies
Turn from the registers of prisoners t
= the registers of marriages. You will fin,
that about O hundred and thirty thousan,
. couples We're married in the year 1874
!, More than forty thousand of the bride
y grOoIns and more than sixty thousand o
n the Drlues ulu nots sigh tnelr names, Du
), made their marks. Nearly one-third Q
), the men and nearly one-half of the women
= who are in the prime of life, who are to b
e the parents of the Englishmen of the mex
- generation, who are to bear a chief part i
y forming the minds of the Englishmen c
7 the next generation, cannot write thei
= own names. Remember, too, that, thong
!, people who cannot write their own name
y must be grossly ignorant, people may writ
70 their own names and yet have very littl
S knowledge Tens of thousands who wer
:, able to write their names had in all probs
=. ~ bility received only the wretched educ;
~ ton of common day school. We kno'
what such school too often is; a ROOF
81 crusted with filth, without light, withol
- air, with heap of fuel in one corner an
" a brood of chickens i'm another the onl
?, machinery of instruction a dogeared spell
q. ingbook and a broken slate; the maste
a. the refuse of all other callings-dscarde
~ footmen, ruined peddlers, men who cann
=. work sum in the rule of three, men wi
!; cannot write a common letter withol
-, blunders, men who do not know wheth
y the earth Is sphere or a cube, men WI
do not know whether Jerusalem il in As
-, or America. And to such men, men
ie whom none of US would entrust the X,
70 to his cellar, we have entrusted the mil
4 OF the eising generation, and, with u
>. mind of the rising generation, the freedoI
~. the happiness, the glory of the country
NJ xE+