Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-07-17
THE SCHOOL AND THE REPUBLIC.

ADDRESS DELIVERED BY L. +. LAW, At
RECEPTION TENDERED TO GRADUATING
CLASS OF 1891.
Less than forty years ago Lord Mac
auley, the English historian, philosO-
pher and political seer, prophesied
that this government could not long
exist, that it must soon end in anarchy.
Basing his opinion upon the expert
ences of nations in the past, and rea-
soning from known data, he could not
think it possible that Il government so
free as Ours-a government in which
every citizen is Il legislator, in which
the opinion of the masses Is, in the
long run, the chief executive, could
endure. Time has shown the great
scholars prophecy to be false. To-day
this government is stronger than ever.
| When this prophecy was voiced, one
of the corner stones of this government
was human slavery. Since then the
greatest civil war known to history has
swept away this relic of the barbaric
past, and through this war the nation
| lived.
In his reasoning Macauley had left
out one element-the influence of the
! American free school.
The experience of the world has been
that every republic, every free govern
ment, must foster the education of her
people rs the price of her existence.
! In this country the governing class is
! the entire body of the people; hence
! the education of the entire body is an
essential means of securing good and
permanent government.
In the republic of Sparta, twenty
eight hundred years ago, these princi-
pies were understood by Lycurgus and
the child of every citizen was educated
at public expense. In Athens, under
the laws of SolOn, five hundred years
! before the Christian era, the children
Of all citizens were required TO be edu-
Gated.
These two little free states ruled and
controlled the whole Of Greece, and
Greece for five hundred years ruled
and controlled the shores of the whole
! Mediterranean. 1t was not her physi-
cal force that did this, but the power
of her intelligence.
The literature, philosophy and art of
these enlightened republics have
frightened the pathway of civilization
for two thousand years, and their infiu-
ence is imperishable.
In the central part of monarchial
| Europe, nesting among the crags of
the Alps, is n small country about one
fourth as large as Michigan, with a
population somewhat larger. While
the monarchies of Europe have been
organizing armies and fighting battles
in accordance with the caprices of self
ish princes and war-like dukes, the ma
ton of Switzerland has been educating
her people; and to-day the general
diffusion of elementary education in
this nation is exceeded in no other
country. Were it not for this Switzer
| land could not exist for year among
the grasping monarchies of Europe;
but the prestige of her moral and in
tellectual force, in the present age,
more than counterbalances the mill
tary prowess of a despotism; and when
the cheap nOtoriety of title-bedecked
gambling princes, and of immoral,
weak-brained lords is forgotten, the
fame of Switzerland's educated peas
antry, of her free schools, and of the
work of her scholars, will be fresh in
the mind of man.
Whether or not we are to have wars
in the future the empire of brute
force is ended. In the last conflict be-
tween Germany and France, it was
the German school house that van
quished the massive armies of France
and trailed her eagles in the dust in a
campaign of but six weeks. Every
German soldier was the product of a
free compulsory system of education,
and he could read and write; but for
ty-three per cent. of the French could
read and write. Behind every Ger
man musket existed intelligence and
with intelligence came patriotism. The
French soldier was blind automaton.
The German was an intelligent being
who realized the situation, and knew
in a meaning way that every blow
struck was for home and country.
Our Civil War illustrates well the su-
premacy of mind over matter. At the
outset the South sneered at the North
as an emasculated race of mechanics,
tillers and traders. In the peaceful
pursuits of half-century the taste
for arms had died out in the North.
The sword was uselessly rusted, or had
been made into the ploughshare, and
military pride seemed to be thing of
the past Not 50 in the South. Their
social system, their way of living had
tended TO keep alive the military spir-
it; but this prevailed not against
the intelligence of the North. The
skilled hand and the instructed
head showed themselves as much
at home on the battle field as in
the factory or on the farm. The
school house again wrote the lesson of
mastery, and the men in blue uniforms
trained to think and to act, soon on
sea and river, on mountain and plain
and in valley hemmed in that vast
southland with girdle of fire. 1t was