Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-01-27

doubt or dispute, then every instrumental
ity which the common classes can lay hold
of to improve the public schools upon
which their children depend for an educa-
ton is aduty of the highest character.
As these schools are improved so are the
poor and humble lifted up. The ideas of
Mr. Beecher upon this subject are worthy
OF perusal and thought From report of
his lecture we copy the following:
The education of the whole people, as in
Germany and America, makes them no longer
Inc recipients. butpartners in the whole move
| Ment OF soclety-more and more they are re-
| curing mental and thinking power. Their
influence is permeating all spheres of thought
and action and is controlling in partnership
with those who once had undivided control.
The condition of the great ind universe under
body OF intelligence forms public audience
an immense body before which all professions
and all classes are obliged to admit its cause
and favor the spread of their ideas. 1t con.
tains within itself also the power to intensity,
to modify, indirectly to direct the actions of all
! professions and OF all classes. For while the
thinker, like the engraver with fine craving
tool and a minute and cutting point, may ex-
! cavate and cut finely, finely as one by the
| voice OF the people, the force of the peo-
! pie moves forward to success, not because of
the power in single hand, but because be-
| hind the hand to strike and to give TO the tool,
not the delicate touches which comes from one
mans might, but tie whole force of the PEG.
pie, and the whole force of the whole commu-
nifty. and things which one man cannot do
oitentimes, and the power which comes from
the enthusiasm and the nascept sympathy of
the whole, are done with an Intensity which
| produces results never known before. Once
the learned classes livedin themselves, and for
themselves, but now they are obliged to live in
the public, and are responsible to the whole
public. 1t was impossible that these changed
conditions would not work gradually to modi-
fy and change the professions themselves and
the classes themselves. Hence the newspa-
per, which, being the vehicle through which
public thought and feeling expresses itself,
rouses the public feeling and leads it to give
the same expression. 1t would not have ex-
isted in any other time, it would not have ex-
listed in any other place save where the demo-
cratic feeling and the democratic liberty is
prevalent. He did not propose to map out the
future OF society and to show the character O
the time when the democratic influences will
have their full development. Nature refused
to sit to have her portrait taken. II DEVELOPED
itself not according to mems wishes, it was
not thing to be forced forward, and though
men may modify and endeavor to change, yet
after all, society was living, organic pow er,
and shaped itself by its own internal force.
The spread OF democratic influence was thus
shaping our political affairs. 1t has enlarged
the individual, it has changed the unit of So
cie.y. Formerly the master of the household
was the house itself to all men; wife and
children had no legal representation except in
him. He was their master; he represented
nY 70 tr, yr, In CtnkN. T. IL II
the State. But the individual has now be-
come the unit of the State, and the family is
not known Every single individual stands
before the law in his own name and in his own
nature. But no; 1t was not So Every man
stood before society in his own personality /;
but 1t did not say woman, except through her
married relations. Once man was nothing ::
society was everything; but now we were
taught that society was good for the good
1t conferred on the individual. The old con.
dlton OF things was gone going, and all at.
tempts 10 revive it would be futile. The
great natural laws of society were fighting this
attempt to swallow up individuality and
democratic influences make it impossible that
nations can exist at the sacrifice of individuals.
Ihe Old doctrine to neglect and not recognize
them was giving out. The strength of the State
Is now known to depend upon its merits and
the more that can be made of the individuals
the more strength will be aggregated into the
State. Applause. Man, besides having a
commercial and political value, has spiritual
value, and, by the force of the democratic
| principles OF religion, we were ntensifying
the value of the individual man, without det-
rment to the organization of the State We
have learned that the favorably organized man
naturally becomes the benefactor of the less
tavorably organized We were learning that
| no State could rise that was high at the ton.
leaving the bottom trembling trunk, to be
uprooted by the shock of the storm, Men
must take care Of the whole the strong must
bear portion of the burden of the weak; this
was not simply moral or Scriptural obliga-
ton, but truth of political organization.
There were republics before ours that -four
ished and faded because of the disproportion.
ate nature of the constituent elements. and no
republic is going to stand that will not stand
on the whole people from the bottom to the
| top. Applause. Educated individualism
| OF the whole brings unit and breadth and
| power to the State. Knowing men, strong
men, make better citizens than those whose
minds are contracted by prejudice. The
democratic principle did not mean that ey-
cry man was to be Of one level; it recognized
| diversity, and holds that every man has
right to stand on that point on which his
strength and development puts him. Democ-
iaC! Sioiieu III Ieiat1Fe strength IL reJOlceQ
| in the poor mans success, and honored ability
| by promotion to high offices, but only for a
| period. 1t destroyed artificial classes, but it
| made society stable, because it broadened the
| base on which it stood. Wars were almost
| always dynastic among civilized nations, but
| the time has come when the whole BODY of
the people, the working men, will say we will
in future not be blown against each other.
Whatever else may be said of Communism,
it sought to bring the workingpsn of all ma
tons together in their oppositisn to warfare
and bloo9shed, and he held that the triumph
of democracy the world over was the triumph
of peace. Applause.