The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-02-27
THURSDAY EvEN'G, FEB. 81. 1873.
Education. Industry. Crime.

Liz pOltblOul uhu cOSioi oIasioeito VI
every country show an intimate connec-
ton between education and industry-so
intimate, in fact, that the degree of the
one almost invariably corroborates the pre-
else degree of the other. This is true
not only of all the mechanical trades
and industries of people, but of their
chief agricultural pursuits. The degree Of
general education to which they have
reached, is sort of correlative basis on
which to predicate their productive indus
try. 1t would be easy to establish this
fact not only from our own political and
social statistics, but from innumerable
reports and statements made before par
lamentary committees in Great Britain, as
well as those made to the proper bureaus
of industrial information among the lead
ing governments of the continent. In fact,
ever since Scion, the wisest and best of all
human lawmakers, insisted upon universal
education among the people as the best
means of warding off viciousness and crimi-
nalty, the truth of the proposition we
have advanced has been conclusively de-
monstrated.
But another, and, in some respects, q
more important truth has been demonstra-
ted, that where education has been at low
cbb among a people, viciousness and Grim
inality have not only set in, but liberty
has eifactually ebbed out. Ignorance and
idleness are not only twin evils, politically
and socially considered, but they are in a
measure S,amesed, so that the one is logi-
cally inseparable from the other. During
the decline of the Roman empire, the
idling wretches of the capital city
had sunk so low in ignorance, that
they were too cowardly to march
against the predatory tribes of Germany,
that two or three centuries before might
easily have been hurled back to the forests
from which they emanated for purposes of
plumber rather than empire; but such
harvest of crime had sprung up on the
luxuriant soil of Incidence, occasioned by
the low ebb of industrial education, that
only few highly educated and patriotic
Roman people could be found to contend
against the invading hordcs of barbarians.
1t seemed as though the ignorance of Rome
stood ready to welcome the ignorance Of
the world at the gates of the imperial city,
that all might plunge into an underlined and
indolent selfshness together. So little
was the loss of liberty felt by
those ignorant and degraded wretches,
who had sunk into vicious habits on the
decline Of education and the spirit of in
dustry it melted, that their chief delight
consisted in witnessing the agony of the
dying gladiator as put upon the arena by
their barbaric conquerors.
The experience Of all the republics Of
antiquity, of the worst times of the feu.
dial ages, as well as the last five centu-
ries, is all one way in its demonstration,
that want of education and it's attendant
want of industry are not only closely
connected with vciousness and criminality,
but lead to such submissiveness and
want of independence on the part Of the
people that liberty goes out as an ineyita-
BILE consequence. The history of the
world warrants no such hattering conclu-
sion as that which would admit of the ex-
istence of republic, or the preservation
for any length of time of civil liberty,
without the establishment of some system
of education on which to build up the
future citizen. In no other way can we
lnfuse into the hearts and minds of our
youth love of liberty, or desire to imi-
tate splendid examples of virtue. 1t is in
the school.room where such examples are
cited. or at the fireside where educated
mothers are the presiding divinities, that
the love of liberty first takes root, and
drives out the individual selfshness that is
too apt to grow up like rank and
poisonous weed. 1t is here that
they learn that peculiar lesson of
liberty, without which no republic can
long exist, that it is the privilege of the ctr
zen to obey as well as enforce laws, and
his chief delight at all times to obey good
laws, as well as to applaud the makers of
them. 1t is in these twomoral atmospheres
the school-room and the educated fire.
side-that the habit of independence is
secured the love of justice, of right, of
standing manfully by principle, even in
disjain of popularity, is inspired /; and that
themoral foundations ofindividual character
aud greatness are enduringly laid.
II is no more Gods order that all animal
life should be sustained by food than it is
that the higher wants Of the human soul
should be gratified by knowledge. A law
against the proper sustinence of either, is,
therefore, "a law against nature, which no man
is bound to obey. A state may be so OPP
pressed by poverty and burdened with tax
alton that it may not be able properly to
provide for the education of all its children;
but the idea of passing law that child
shall have no intellectual training-that
his immortal nature shall be pinched aud
Starved and dwarled out of all comeliness
and manhood because he has q father
that cannot pay capitation tax-is
a disgrace to human statute books when
svar M xvboravar anactad nav moro Il