The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-27
New England.
What John Bright Thinks of 1t.

Recent Speccn.l
will ask you for moment to go with me to
portion of the United States of America
which was peopled from this country some two
hundred and forty years ago-to the States
which are called New England States As you
look upon the map of the United States you
will find cluster of small States to the north
east of the State OF New York, and those six
States which go by the name of New England
are those which were, more than any others,
originally settled by Puritan emigrants from
England. This district to which am confin-
ing your attention, for am not asking you to
look over the whole of the United States,
though in all the free States the same system
has extended to a great degree, aud is gradual
ly promising to produce similar fruits-the
New Eogand States contain population of
about three and half millions. When the
Puritans landed in that country they had
some idea of what was necessary for the pros
perity of the people, and they, amongst other
things, made this declaration-I take it from
Mr.. Bancroft s 'Hstory of the Colonization of
the United States they say that "none of the
brethren shall suffer so much barbarism in
their families"-Inark the word barbarism-
'as not to teach their children and apprentices
so much learning as may enable them perfectly
to read the English -tassse.n~And further they.
say: "Tothe end that learning may not be buried
in the graves of our forefathers' it was ordered
in all the Puritan colonies shat every township
when the Lord has increased them to the num-
Der of fifty householders, shall appoint one TO
teach all children to write and read; and when
any town shall increase to the number of one
hundred families they shall set up a grammar
school, the masters thereof being able to in
struct youth so far as they may be fitted for
the university" Bear in mind that this was
done by your own countrymen-countryme
that were driven out from this country by the
tyrannous supremacy of the churc,. of that
dynasty of the Stuarts. Thew were driven out,
forced emgrants, outcasts as it were from their
native country, landed on shores that then
promised little for the future, and, two hun
dred and twenty years ago. they passed these
resolutions or laws which have just ex.
planned to you, and esta blished a system of ed
ucation which, from that time to this, has
gone on with ever-gatherng force, raising the
population of those States to a Condition which
is not eqnalled amongst any other people on
the globe As to the results, might give you
the statements of travellers. give you the
statement of one friend of mine. who is now
no longer living-I refer to very eminent
member of the House of Commons, the late
Mr.. Ellice the member for Coventry. Mr.. Ell
lice travelled Ill America, as he had done two
or three times BEFORE very near the close of
his life. Some years ago he visited Canada
and the United States. In a conversation with
ne after his return, he said that, in the New
England States, there Was "the most perfect
government in the world" there was "the
most equal condition and the most universal
comfort among the people," and he said the
whole population, he believed, were ''more in
structed, more moral, and more happy, truly,
than any other equal population had been in
any other country or in any other age of the
world.'
And the whole of this is to be traced, not to
the soil, not to the climate, but, believe, to
the extraordlnary care which the population,
from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers unto this
day, have taken that every child, boy or girl
should be thoroughly instructed at least in the
common branches of learning. met man
once who told me that until he was about twen-
ty years OF age he had never seen man who
could not read and write, and when he saw
HIM, and believe he had come from Europe,
he looked at him with amazement, as you look
some times rather with aStonishment. and also
with great sympathy, to persons who have some
SHOWS that speaking generally, there is scarce.
ly to be found one person-that is. one native
American-certainly you could not find one
out of many hundreds, in the New England
States, who cannot read and write. The infiu-
ence of these States is enormous They send
teachers all through the American Union, and
the opinion and the Influence of those small
States, containing not more than about one
tenth of the whole population of the American
Union, are felt to the remoteSt corners of that
vast territory Now, in New England they con-
slider that their plan is the only plan They
have tried it for 200 years. Its success is be-
yond all contest. and absolutely complete; and
there has been nothing like it that has been
equally successful in the world. And what
their Puritan anceStors--for aught know they
were our ancestors, some of them, as we'll as
theirS-what their Puritan forefathers in the
New England States did, if the people of Eng
land had the sense to comprehend their true
interests, they might compel to be done in this
country as we'll. Who is there, except the
unhappy children who are left in dark
ness, who are so interested in this
question as you, the Sunday school teach
we're taught reading and writing, the ordinary
branches of what is called secular instruction,
in the week, how much less laborious would be
your work in the Sunday school, and how
much more prolific of great and blessed re-
suits! When the government of this country
is more ''of the people" and "by the people,"
then twill also be more "for the people" And
believe now, if it were possible to poll all the
men and women in Great Britain, that there
would be prodigious majority in favor of es-
tabliShing some great system which should
bring the blessings of common school educa-
tion down to the very humblest people in the
realm. know nothing, believe there is moth
ing, that can so contribute to the freedom and
the happiness and the true greatness of ma
tion as thorough, comprehensive and COM