The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1882-02-18
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE CIVIL
SERVICE.

PIE. ouf fepuOllc rests upon knowledge
its founders proposed to make every citi-
zen cultivated, intelligent, and fit to hold
any public office. They planned pure
democracy in which every public servant
should be worthy of his place. Public
schools were introduced to carry out this
idea. The whole community was to re.
ceive a common education. Every one
was to be made capable of serving in
public offices. and taught to know and
fulfill his duty in the State. The theory
was excellent; in part it has been sue,
cessful, in part failed.
1t was the modest complaint of the
great philosopher that he knew nothing
it might well be the cry of every civil,
lied nation and every citizen or subject
The chief want of the time is knowl-
edge. Our material prosperity has sur
passed our intellectual. even in the best
educated communities. Few know theil
real interests. and few know how to gov
ern or even to obey. If all men were
sufficiently instructed. wars might CEASE
and controversies end: we should neeG
little government and little law. The
impulse of representation would MAKE
every man q superior being. He would
be virtuOus from necessity and demo
crat from choice. No one would strug
gle for a vain superiority in dress, out
| ID el, l,
all would prefer the common good
knowledge would spread general com
fort, health, industry, content; would
diminish disease, Danish pauperism, re-
press vice: build clean cities, well fur
nished with aqueducts and drains; would
open W de means of travel. and promote
and enforce the public welfare. This
was the conception of the founders OF
the republic. You must build up youl
institutions, they said, ION knowledge
and public virtue" Franklin, Washing,
ton, the Adamses, Jefferson, and all the
democratic thinkers of the earlier period
saw clearly that no people could be free
| viz "CtC lot lilClllSClll Gtlli CAREFULLY
educated. They insisted upon the spread
of knowledge as the only support of free
institutions.
They were timid and did not 60 far
enough. They should have provided a
national system of education. and they
should have directed every public official
to be instructed in the national schools.
They suggested the idea of Il perfect
service when they demanded that every
citizen should be educated. but unhap-
PLY they were satisfied with suggestin.
the theory. They formed no plan of pub
lie instruction. They thought it no part
of the duty of the general government
to become a teacher of children: they
left that duty to the separate towns OF
States. They founded general post
Office to convey the fruits of knowledge:
they coined money, planned roads. raised
an army and navy; they taxed every citi-
zen, entered every house, asserted their
supreme authority over the family and
the person, interfered with all domestic
and private affairs when it seemed neces-
sary. They might we'll have gone fur
ther, and if they were sincere in their
conviction that knowledge is the source
! of freedom. it seems the more remark
able that they did not do SO. The idea
of a national system of education seems
not to have suggested itself to them. \
hundred years ago it was almost un-
known. Germany had its imperfect sys-
TEN of free schools; Scotland, its paro-
chial system; Massachusetts and Con-
necticut, their stringent educational laws
But England, France. Spain, Italy, were
lost in ignorance, and the people every
where enslaved.
In 1888 or 11S1 our ancestors miyht
easily have engralted an educational law
upon their new Constitution: they might
have provided every village with school
and selected their officials from the in
telligcnt and the pure. 1t was happy
moment for bold speculations in politics
and novel institutions. Bernar,iin St.
Pierre had already suggested the found.
ing of a great center of education in the
heart of Paris. The philosophic school
of the time abounded in educational
theories. 1t seems the more wonderful
that the founders of the Constitution did
not seize their opportunity and ingraft
upon il practical system Of public in
struction. They failed: the consequences
have been lamentable. A system of Of
| tice-Seeking and political influence grew
up that corrupted the young and debased
the old, that made beggary respectable
where the beggar sought an office. and
made every successful politician an aims
giver to countless hungry expectants. A
universal greed of office spread over the
nation. 1t arose under Washington. it
grew in Jefferson's time. it became I'M
der jackson and Van Buren, a raging
plague. Parton. in his Life Of .Mcks0n,
describes the adventures of young office
seeker who goes to Washington, meets
with some ludicrous mishaps, happens to
please noted lady of the time, and is
successful. He obtains his Office. A
short note of dismissal is sent to his
predecessor. lie is man of family,
useful in his place and dependent wholly
on his salary. He is dismissed without
notice to penury and want, and our young
adventurer takes his place. lie displeases
Van Buren,, but the influence behind the
throne keeps him secure. At last Jack
son retires. Van Buren, comes in. and
with few insolent words expelS him
from the place in which he had long been
useful.
From Van Buren's time the plague
has never ceased. 1t has ragged most vio-
lently at the South. Before 1860 nearly
every young man in the Southern States
of the ruling class promised himself an
office, and the shock of the great rebel
| lion. with all it's fearful deeds and conse-
quences, was in great part politician, $
and an office seekers war. 1t was the
fear of the loss of political patronage
that aroused the active leaders among
the shareholders. When the people We're
cold they drove them to rebellion with
whip and scourge. 1t would be impoSsi-
BILE to paint i'll too strong characters the
fatal results of the passion for Office
seeking Ii i- vice like opium eating
that has softened the brain of the ma