The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1876-04-22

fold more true, more suitable. more
useful, than the communication OF GER
tain literary arts, which he will almost
necessarily disuse. Let the reader recall
that brilliant passage Of Maeaulay, as Just
us brilliant, in which he shows, against DR..
johnson, that the Athenian populace, with
out books, was a highly cultivated people.
Let him remember how entirely the great
ness of the feudal barons in the middle
ages was dissociated from all ts sclerkly arts -;
yet they were warriors, statesmen, poets,
and gentlemen. So our own country pre-
sents IN humber instance in the more re-
spectacle Of the African freedmen. Tens OF
thousands Of these, ignorant Of letters, but
trained to practical skill, thought, and re-
source, by Intelligent masters, and initiating
their superior breeding and sentiments,
present, in every aspect, far "higher style
of man" than your Yankee laborer from his
common school, with his shallow smattering
and purblind conceit, and his wretched
newspaper stuffed with moral garbage from
the police courts, and with false and poison
Gus heresic> in politics and religion. Put
such man in the same arena with the
southern slave from 4 respectable pllnta-
ton. and in one weeks time the ascendency
OF the negro, in sclf-respect, courage, breed
ing, prowcSs, and practical intelligence, will
all spectators. The slave was, in fact, the
educated man.
Let it be granted, as we have just implied,
that there is a certain use which this alum
ms Of the common school may continue to
make of his knowledge Of letters. This
gives us our strongest argument. Then the
common schools will have created q nume-
rolls ''publc'' of readers one quarter or
one tenth cultivated: and the sure result
will be the production for their use OF
false, shallow, sciolist literature, science,
and theology, infinitely worse than blank
ignorance. Wheresoever the carcass is,
thither will the eagles be gathered together"
This will be the sure result Of the law OF
supply and demand inspired by mercenary
spirit. Formerly, literature was for the edu-
Gated; it was their occupation, and they
formed the constituency for whom the pro-
ducerS OF literature labored. Consequently,
the literature of the civilized nations
was characterized by all that was most
decent in manner, elevated in senti-
ment. and thorough and just in argument,
OF which their society could boast. The
uneducated or quarter-educated formed no
direct constituency for authors and publish
ers; they did not bid for them, or cater to
them. These unlettered classes received
their ideas Of literary, political, philosophi-
cal, and theological subjects (the most igno-
rant virtually have their politics, phlloso-
ply, and theology from their social supe-
riorS, through social channels. And this
was source much safer than the present
"literature for the Million" because much
higher, prrer, and more diSinterested. The
consequence was that the unlettcred classes
reflected the opinions, sentiments, and eie-
waited tone Of the uppermost stratum; now,
it is those of Il class lower and more sordid
than themselves. Thus, the southern over
seer, who read little but his Bible, had iudg-
ment infinitely better trained, moral tone
far higher, and a social, political, and reli-
gious creed far sounder, than the modern
ulun,nuS Of your ''common school," with
his Jewelers. arrogance and envy, and his
armful Of cheap newspapers. The oVerseer
had the landed gentry who employed him
as his instructors and models, and through
them drew his speculative opinions from
the noblest minds Of the South: the Craw-
fords, Cheves, Madisons, Barbours, Ran
dophs, Calhouns. The common-school
alumnus has the wretched sciolists and
theological quacks, who drive their sordld
trade in cheap periodical literature. The
advocates Of the Yankee system boast in it,
and revile the old one in that the latter made
letters the prcrogative of the few; theirs OF
the many But letters of what sort? Here
we have "giYen them a Roland for their
Oliver"
We appeal to facts. Has not the creation
of this large reading Out not truly edu-
catcd) public occasioned flood OF mis-
chicyous, heretical, scioliStic, corruptlng
literaturcy The result is that the book and
Inewspaper-making trade has, for sordid
purposes, brought down to the lower classes
q multitude of speculations on the most
dangerous subjects, with which no mind is
prepared to deal for itself and independ-
emily until it is very thoroughly trained
and informed. That thorough mental dis
cipline and full learning the common schools
| can never give to these masses. They may
as we'll promise that every agrarian among
them shall be an Astor or Rothschild in
wealth. The state Of European and Yankee
society under this new impulse illustrates
the facts we assert. The smattering which
State education has given the masses has but
been to them the opening OF Pandora's box.
1t has only launched them in an ocean which
| they are incompetent to navigate. Every
manufactory is converted into debating
club, where the operatives intoXlcate their
minds with the most licentious vagarles OF
opinions upon every fundamental subject OF
politics and religion; and they have only
| knONleQSe enough 10 run lntO uaHSeI,
without having a tenth part Of the know
ledge necessary to teach them their danger
and incompetency. 1t was this system
which prepared the way for the "Interna-
tional Society" and the horrors Of the Paris
Commune. So far are these nations from
being hcalthily Illuminated, they are an
easier prey to the most destructive heresies,
social and religious; and their condition is
| far More unWholesome and volcanic, with a
more terrifying prospect Of social dissolu-
ton, anarchy, and bloodshed, than was ever
presented by the ignorance Of the ''middle
ages. /" So obvious was this tendency to
| thoughtful minds thirty-tive years ago that
the great historian Heeren, with his intimate
acquaintance with all the defects OF medi-
ayal society, announced the deliberate opin-
ion that the art Of printing was destined to
be more curse than blessing to Europe.
It is not necessary for us to espouse that
opinion here is, ut least, fair instance for
the application OF the maxim of Pope, now
so universally and disdainfully ignored:
I" 4 little learning is a dangerous thing:
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draugbts intoxicate the pralh,
But drinking deeply sobers us again."
The amount Of this grave objection is that
when the State interteres in the work Of COM
mon-school education it inevitably does not
enough or too much. To give that large
learning and thorough discipline necessary
for setting the mind to deal independently
with the corrupt labyrinth OF modern cur