Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-08-20

President Elot's argument against Ma
tional University, recently made before the
National Educational Association in Elmira,
N. Y, is receiving wide endorsement by,
The press of all parties. Ia our view of the
subject bis argument is weak and incoDclu-
siye, and the endorsement undsserved. The
objection to such an institution for the ad-
yancement of learning and science in the
United States, rests wholly on the narrow
basis that Congress may use it for political
and party purposes. To this we answer,
that the possibility of an abuse of any good
thing is never sound argument against its
legitimate use. All education my be,
and often is abused by perver-
sion in aid of crime and vice.
The purest religion is not exempt from
counterfeit hypocrisy. If we cannot have
gold and silver cJin for daily use, nor paper
money without an occasional b d issue that
is harmful, does 1t follow that we shall have
neither metal nor paper for currency? To
insist that any institution, created by nan,
shall be much purer than man himself or
not exist, is bad reasoning, and if reduced
to practice would soon put an end to our
whole republican system. Fifty years ago
when Congress first voted public lands TO
aid common schools and academies in the
new States and Territories, the pos
sible abuse of this fehcol fund
was as great as it is now.
Congress then had no desire to pervert the
public grant to any improper purpose. We
venture to say and believe that the Ameri-
can people are not so generally and de eply
corrupted as to re der it impossible for
them TO send men to the national legisla-
ture who will not steal the money tn at is
appropriated to public university. We
submit If our public servants are so horri-
bly, rotten at heart, that they cannot vote
or educational purposes the one huud,edth
part Of the sum which they now vote for
the army and navy, it is time that every
school boy betaught the necessity of reform.
Some thirty-five years ago Congress dis
tributed from the Treasury forty million
dollars am oDg the States and Territories.
New York received over four million, which
the Legislature appropriated to educational
uses. Some millions Of pupils Ia that State
alone have been greatly benefited by this
Federal appropriation. 1t is absurd to pre-
tend that Congrcss cannot possibly endow
q much needed national school for the
thorough education of professors in all
State colleges and universities without max.
ing the nsitution a political machine. all
must admit that any Congress that has not
wit enough nor virtue enough to establisha
first class school without any reference to
politics or making money, has sunk below
contempt. The argument of Prof. Eliot is
mere clsptrsp. Congress has voted both
land and money for educational purposes
for half century, with the APPRECIATION of
all parties and all sections in the Uni ed
States. Are we progressive, free people, |
who intend to make no farther progress il
this pure educational direction? Those |
journals that SO believe will probsbly live to |
find themselves mistaken. Sooner or
later, Congress will have 10 aid still |
more in educating first class educators.
CultiVating human brains is just as consti-
tutional as blowing them out with gum
powder, and in practice, it will not cost the
nation tbousandth part as much. Men
that worship gunpowder and rob lsboring
people Of some fifty million dollars year
to magnify its importance, may learn some
lay that there are higher forces in the uni
verse which will utilize sulphur and salt
petre as fertilizers, and not require them as
agents of human butchery. A national
means simply progress with all
left ont. Education favors light
and truth; anti-university favors darkness,
fraud and falsehood. as'l