Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-07-17
YALE, ST. Clair County. Mich, FRIDAY,

uOl II NlClOTN OF mere men, III WdS
conquest of thought and knowledge
The inventors of the railway, telegraph
and ironclad steamer, marshalling the
forces of nature, did more to save the
republic than the leaders of armies.
Enough has been said to show that
the existence of II free government is
dependent upon the intelligence of
the people. So far we have discussed
what education has done, now we will
consider what it must and cdR do.
Each age has its problems. Conditions
change. Circumstances modify the
lives of nations as we'll as the lives of
individuals.
As the public school has sustained
the nation in the past 50 it must and
1CW in the future amid changed con-
ditions and new responsibilities, if the
state is careful to sustain and build
the school. Without intermission
year after year multitudes Of immi-
grants arrive at our shores, and the
numbers are increasing III rapid ratio.
Recently these immigrants have been
more ignorant and degraded than for
merly. We can hardly expect to make
good American citizens of many of
these people; but we can of their chill
dren and our means of accomplishing
this are the free schools. The parents
speak hundred tongues, the children
in the public school soon speak but
one, the language of their country.
| To each child the school gives new
tongue, to each home it sends a youth
full interpreter of American life and
| institutions. The child that has gone
through the public school is an Amer
| lean no matter where he first saw the
light of the sun.
Again in country like ours, with its
free political life, we cannot expect
| that all classes will entertain correct
social and political theories; hence we
have all social creeds and political
iSBis, from the dangerous anarchist
who would destroy factories, railroads
and human life, down to the reform
communist who does nothing more
dangerous than nothing, and who
constantly complains on the street or
at the corner grocery because people
who are industrious have more of the
rewards of labor than he. Again, the
almost absolute power Of aggregated
wealth must be restrained, the evils of
intempcrance combatted, legislative
abuses corrected, and political reforms
instituted. We have nowhere else to
look but to the public school to raise
up generation of men and women
who shall be the means Of accomplish
ing these ends.
Another reason for free common
and high schools lies in the relation of
the individual to the nation. All re-
| forms must in Il certain sense begin
with the individual citizen, as a repub-
lie Is but an aggregation of citizens.
! The state needs the whole of every
man and woman, when he or she has
made of himselb or herself all that is
possible. Not only does the state need
the sons and daughters Of the rich but
| also of the poor. Good schools are
| the only means that will place the
| people in medium circumstances on
an equality with the rich and fortune
favored classes. The greatest men
and women of this country to-day are
mainly coming from the ranks of the
poorer people and those in moderate
circumstances. 1t is education that
| brings out the qualities of the poor
| boy or girl who otherwise would re-
main an unpublished gem unknown to
fame and fortune Genius does not
germinate III the cradle of the rich
alone; the rarest gems are often found
| III lut HlllllDlcSJ SClllllSS.
Webster was born in sparsely set
tied frontier neighborhood and laid
the foundation for his education in
the common school.
Franklin enjoyed those early priva-
tons that seem to foster greatness.
John Marshall, the greatest of ur-
lists, was a poor boy.
| Horace Mann, the American states
| oil in oh
scure country place and received his
early education in district school.
The Cary sisters, both as true poets
as the century has produced, spent
the early part of their lives in OBJ
scurity.
History repeats itself; it has ever
been thus; in clay built cottage,
Burns was born of parents of the poor
est peasant class, yet from him came
the sweetest song that ever echoed
from Scottish hills. He was the living
proof of his own verse:
"The rank is but the gunea's stamp,
| mans man for a. that"
The school and the republicl How
important that the relation they bear
to each other be a close one! Then we
can say with the poet:
"Thou. too, sail on, o Ship of State
| Sail on, Union, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears
| With all the hopes of future years,
| Is hanging bIeathlesS on thy fate.
We know what Master laid thy keel
| What wOrkmen wrought thy ribs of steel
| Who made each mast and sail and rope;
| What anvils rang, what hammers beat
! In what forge, and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors Of thy hope.
Fear not each sudden sound and shock
! 'Tis of The wave. and not the rock;
| Tis but the Tapping of the sail,
| And not "a rent made by the gale.
i In spite of rock and tenpest's roar.
| In spite of false lights on the shore.
| Sail ON, nor fear to breast the sea-
| our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee:
| Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
| Our faith triumphant DER our fears,
Are all with thee-are all with thee!
Specimen Cases.
s. III. Clifford, New Cassel, Wis, was
| troubled with Neuralgia and Rheuma-
tism, his Stomach was disordered, his