The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-01-30
Henry Ward Beecher on Compulsory Educa.
fiOn.

Tn recent lecture delivered in New York,
Rev Henry Ward Beecher assumed the ground
that the State should provide free schools and
compel all children to attend. Without en-
dorsing all his views, we print the following
summary of his lecture, which will repay a
careful perusal:
Although all the great elements of thought
have now more or less gathered in the worlds
history. there are periods when one or another
of the great elements of human interest rose
prominent, so that it seemed almost as if there
were waves of thought as there were waves OF
atmosphere The earliest was the element OF
war. and nations have given to that and Its
correlated interest all their attention. linen
came politics, not in the narrow sense, but the
consideration of the rights Of man, the nature
Of man the nature of government, the duties
Of citizens. and all that belonged to the social
life. Then there had been theology, and at
periods that had dispossessed almost all other
interests; not religion, but theology, or the
philosophy of religion, which sometimes had
been the groundwork on which all other inter
ests of the state had been embroidered, and 1T
might temper the almost audacity OF theoio-
CLANS if they would but recollect how the
themes that at different periods of history had
supplanted all others, which had been looked
upon as the very first upon which the world
turned, had gone out of sight and been go Tor
gotten that they now had to be hunted for IN
the books of antiquaries. In the present day
the industrial element, political economies
have occupied mems thoughts as never before
and the element which was making itself the
most felt was education, national education,
for there never had been time when the rich
mems SONS were not educated, bnt IN this day
the education of all classes, from the top to the
bottom of society. An educated man was like
q knife with forty blades; the uneducated man
had only the right to open one. 1t meant the
RIGHT to be men, the right to be free; and that
risht carried with it the right of expansion or
development, as the right to be the acorn car
ried with it the right to be the oak. AS mere
matter of political economy the whole world
was demanding that people should be educated,
and the remarkable theory about this was that
the ignorant themselves are demanding educa,
ton. The great mass of the laboring men all
over the world are beginning to see that the
reason of their hard work and small wages Is
their deprivation of education. Great Britain
is not moving for revolution-she is too wise
for that-but She is moving for education, and
the question is, shall the state educate or shall
the church? shall the schools be secular or
sectarian? And there was no doubt how that
Question would be settled in all nations-that
the state shall educate and not the priest
There was no doubt but that education IN the
hands of the priests had been of great beneht
to the world, but in the advancement OF society
it had come to pass that the priest was for the
spiritual and the school-master for secular edu-
cation, and the school-master had become
separate and distinct profession, as much as
that of the lawyer or the physician. AS IN
Great Britain so in Germany education had
been part of the very idea of life, and 1t was
education that had raised her to stand head
and shoulders above all the Christian nations
of Europe. So Austria accepted from her con-
oueror her system of common schools, and after
ffty wears she will stand with more lllustrlous
strength than ever she did. So France-the
lowest now of the nations, but little while
ago the proudest-was found when struck with
the mailed hand of Germany to be hollow, and
it was the want of knowledge among her com,
mon people that put France down. She had
an ignorant peasantry, and her army was poor
compared with the army that came forth from
the German common schools, and she never
will stand as she did before until she educates
her people. Where education prevails bad
government is difficult and good government is
easy. In proportion as e people are educated
you develop popular sentiment, and pubic
septiment is the sum total of the crest com
munity. Education also increases the wealth
producing power of the state, which makes II
easy to levy and collect large taxes. There are
men in the community like moths, they take
continually and never give anything; there are
others that lust give as much as they take, but
unon an average, zone industrious man takes
care of about ten. There were some classes
that could be allowed to be non-producers,
children and old men, but the great middle
class between childhood and age ought not to
he allowed. There we're some that classed
women with the non-wealth producing class,
but he (Mr. Beecher) thought that woman IN
her household duties was the fair partner OF
man in the wealth acquired. There were many
vonno men lounging around street-corners that
produce less than they consume. 1t these men
were educated the wealth of the state could be
doubled. Industry required an atmosphere 70
make it valuable. The reason why manu1ac-
lures did not thrive as well at the South as IN
New England was because in the latter the
people for generations had been educated 10
industry, and at the South they had not. The
working-men were organizing in clubs and as
soc;ations to better their condition; he was
heartily on the side of those men in all their
efforts to improve themselves, but when they
asserted that one man was as good as another,
ii depended largely on what that other was-
Men were free in one sense; they ought to be
free. but they were not free as matter OF fact.
AS to being equal, in one sense they were equal;
thew stood before the law equally; but that did
not mean that they had the same productive
power. Men were not equal in that sense one
man could do more than another, and that was
the highest man that could do the highest
things. s'for as sure as there is God in heav-
EN-" continued the lecturer, 'no man can go
down that has educated brains, and no man
can 20 up and stay up that has not" Zap
plause.) There were special reasons why
America should press the matter OF popular
education. One was the reason OF her great
population spread over so vast an extent OF
territory that with universal suffrage the Gov
ernment was imperilled unless the people were
sVery quarter of the globe could be fused into
q republic when it was republic like this,
broken up into States, but if it was consoli-
- .....a=arnant II would NOT LAST q ncnera-