Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-19
WORCFSTER
WEDNESDAY,, JULY 10. 1871


We have not been able to admire that peculiar
Frenchman, Gambetta. 1t may be that "pe-
culiar" is not the proper word for his quality is
similar to that of many other Frenchmen. His
wild attempt to continue the war long after re-
sistauce had become hopeless, and his mex
haustible faculty for inventng false reports Of
French victories and having them telegraphed
all over the world, did not enable us to form a
high estimate of his wisdom. We are not sure
that he will ever seem to be very wise; but he
appears to have learned one important lesson.
In conversation with an interviewer" the
other day, he was asked to explain the defeat of
the French by the Germans, and replied as fol-
lows:
"The main cause of our defeat was ignorance,
II can be established by the clearest evidence
that our reverses were caused by the inferiority
of our national education. We were beaten by
adversaries who enlisted on their side foresight
discipline and science. Even in the conflicts of
material force it is intelligence which gains the
victory. The ignorance in which the masses OF
our people are grOvellng engenders at intervals
that can almost be fixed beforehand those terri
. BILE explosions and social hurricanes which APP
pear in the course of our history like kind of
chronic disorder"
The superior intelligence of the Prussian off,
GERS and soldiers, it seems, made powerful i'm
preston on Gambetta, as well as others, and his
influence will be used TO establish in France
something like the system of education to which
it is due In another part of the same CONVEX
sation, he asserted that very large portion of
the French people are wholly without education,
and that "rurar Representatives in the national
assembly are sometimes so rude and ignorant
as to be "objects of well-merited ridicule and
contempt" This ignorance is not only incapa-
BILE; it is also, conservative and reactionary and
hs desires to remove it in the interest of republic
canism. 1t is clear, however, that a considerable
part of it belongs to the "reds" who cause the
sterrible explosions and social hurricanes" of
which he speaks. All who saw the red com
munists during the late bloody proceedings in
Paris, describe the great mass of them as igno-
rant brutes. Not many besides the leaders
could be described as anything else. If men like
Gambetta have really learned that education is
indispensable to the safety and prosperity of
free institutions, they may earn the good opin-
ion of the world, by taking measures to have
it made as common in France as in Prussia, or
in the United States.
IL the interviewer reports him correctly, Gam
beta is warm supporter of the government of
Theirs, and thinks that minor differences of
opinion should not be allowed to trouble it. 1t
brings the republic. 1t is the strongest and
most legitimate government that France can
have. No monarchy possible to the French
could have put down the communist outbreak.
A monarchy would be useless offence, false
hood, . foolish conspiracy against the great
want of France-selfgovernment. 1t is good
sign that such men in France have become earn
est in favor of education for the people. Their
measures to secure it will undoubtedly encounter
distractions; and for the present, they will find
work enough in contending with that powerful,
reactionary influence which opposes popular
education