The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-05-29
Progress.
Houston Telegram.

h'Uatoh lN'cSrdlH'
1t is the leading Characteristic of the age;
the chief difference between ourselves and
the ancients; the lever that is gradually but
surely raising the world to u plane it has
never occupied before. Gradually and i'm
perceptibly the old landmarks Of error are
being pulled down, the ronghold of ignor-
ance and superstition that have so long held
the human mind in the worst and most des-
potic kind of slavery, are being
demolished; in their stead are
being reared the beautiful palaces of
knowledge, development and enlightenment.
Look at the difference between the human
race to-day and two thousand years ago, and
then say whether human progress is NTH.
The time is past when an eclipse or comet
sent a thrill or dread ard foreboding to the
heart of whole nations, and when in the
presence of the startling phenomena of ma
ture entire peoples bowed down in abject
feat and ignorant terror. We the moderns,
have, partially at least, shaken off
the shackles with which ignorance and
superstition bound hard snd fast the
ancient intellect, and by the aid of science
and knowledge We stand in the sunlight of
Nature, free and untrammcled. Supersti-
ton has lost its power; ignorance its do
mlnion; blind creuuIity its grip on the human
mind
But although modern education and the
general diffusion of knowledge of to day has
done so much to change the reign of ideas
from the dark and gloomy despotism that
weighed upon the nations in the middle ages,
to the brilliant light OF modern civilization,
vast deal remains yet to be accomplished
before the human intellect shall have been
nj nrIN l..
vestiges of superstition and ig-
norance. Then shall civilization stand
forth in splendor and without blemish. To
bring up our race to the cry highest point
of development-intellect moral, physi-
ca-oRe great m ans is necessary, and alto
gether within our reach 1t is the thorough
dissemination aud spreading of knowledge,
not alone among any one class, but among
the masses of the people How are the masses
to be reached, and their minds stored with
knowledge sufficient to enable them to form
their own opinions Independently of inter-
ested leaders? How are the labor
ing classes TO be put in condi-
ism and designing deluson that comes
along other words, to be enabled to
think for themselves? These questions have
for centuries engaged the attention of the
philsnthrepist and the statesman as well.
But nothing is less difficult of solution. To
educate the masses, all We have to do is to
educate the children of the masses, and
the object is accomplished. But to teach
these children only one thing is to be
depended on, especially in country
and a State like ours. 1t is the free
public school, at which the child of the
poorest laborer and his rich neighbor alike
may be laugh the rudiments of knowledge
There are men and papers in this State,
claiming to be honest and intelligent, who
denounCe the free education of the children
of the people. But we tell them, in all sin
CERTIFY they are fighting against the spirit of
progress and of a dissemination of knowl-
edge of which the modern free school is the
great lever. They are battling against pro-
gress, and on the side of the same 10
norance that is such q fearful blot upon
the middle ages OF the worlds history |
Upon the free school, Tree education and the |
enlightenment of the masses alone can rely |
for that solid and enduring progress in |
science, government, free institutions and in |
all the great departments of human effort. |
Cripple or destroy popular education, as |
many in our State, including the Governor, |
want to do, and the wheels of progress in |
Texas will Immediately be clogged, and we |
will go backward instead of forward in the |
great race of life.