at all comparable to the vast influx of power which comes into the world with every incoming generation of children? Each embryo life is more wonderful than the globe it is sent to inhabit, and more glorious than the sun upon which it first opens its eyes. Each one of these millions, with a fitting education, is capable of adding something to the sum of human happiness, and of subtracting something from the sum of human misery; and many great souls amongst them there are, who may become instruments for turning the course of nations, as the rivers of water are turned. 8. It is the duty of moral and religious education to employ and administer all these capacities of good for lofty purposes of human beneficence, as a wise minister employs the resources of a great empire. "Suffer little children to come unto me," said the Savior, "and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." And who shall dare say that philanthropy and religion cannot make a better world than the present, from beings like those in the kingdom of Heaven! 9. Education must be universal. It is well when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered amongst the multitude! Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions may be propagated amongst the people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery, is the duty of our government. With us, the qualification of voters is as important as the qualification of governors, and even comes first in the natural order. The theory of our government is,-not that all men, however unfit, shall be voters,—but that every man, by the power of reason and the sense of duty, shall become fit to be a voter. 10. Education must bring the practice as nearly as possible to the theory. As the children now are, so will the sovereigns soon be. How can we expect the fabric of the government to stand, if vicious materials are daily wrought into its frame-work? Education must prepare our citizens' to become municipal officers, intelligent jurors, honest witnesses, legislators, or competent judges of legislation,—in fine, to fill all the manifold relations of life. For this end, it must be universal. The whole land must be watered with the streams of knowledge. It is not enough to have, here and there, a beautiful fountain playing in palace-gardens; but let it come like the abundant fatness of the clouds upon the thirsting earth. LXVII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 1. Finally, education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity. God has revealed to us not by ambiguous signs, but by his mighty works; not in the disputable language of human invention, but by the solid substance and reality of things,what he holds to be valuable, and what he regards as of little account. The latter he has created sparingly, as though it were nothing worth; while the former he has poured forth with unmeasurable munificence. I suppose all the diamonds ever found could be hid under a bushel. Their quantity is little because their value is small. But iron ore, without which mankind would always have been barbarians,-without which they would now relapse into barbarism, he has strewed profusely all over the earth. 2. Compare the scantiness of pearl with the extent of forests and coal fields: of one, little has been created, because it is worth little; of the others, much, because they are worth much. His fountains of naphtha, how few, and myrrh and frankincense, how exiguous; but who can fathom his reservoirs of water, or measure the light and the air? This principle pervades every realm of nature. Creation seems to have been projected upon the plan of increasing the quantity in the ratio of the intrinsic value. 3. Emphatically is this plan manifested when we come to that part of creation we call ourselves. Enough of the material of worldly good has been created to answer this great principle, that, up to the point of competence, up to the point of independence and self-respect, few things are more valuable than property; beyond that point few things are of less. And hence it is that all acquisitions of property, beyond that point, considered and used as mere property, confer an inferior sort of pleasure in inferior quantities. 4. However rich a man may be, a certain number of thicknesses of woolens or of silks is all he can comfortably wear. Give him a dozen palaces, he can live in but one at a time. Though the commander be worth the whole regiment, or ship's company, he can have the animal pleasure of eating only his own rations; and any other animal eats with as much relish as he. Hence the wealthiest, with all their wealth, are driven back to a cultivated mind, to beneficent uses and appropriations; and it is then, and then only, that a glorious vista of happiness opens out into immensity and immortality. 5. Education, then, is to show to our youth, in early life, this broad line of demarcation between the value of those things which can be owned by but one, and those which can be owned and enjoyed by all. If I own a ship, a house, a farm, or a mass of the metals called precious, my right to them is, in its nature, sole and exclusive. No other man has a right to trade with my ship, to occupy my house, to gather my harvests, or to appropriate my treasures to his use. They are mine, and are incapable both of a sole and of a joint possession. 6. But not so of the treasures of knowledge which it is the duty of education to diffuse. The same truth may enrich and ennoble all intelligences at once. Infinite diffusion subtracts nothing from depth. None are poor because others are made rich. In this part of the Divine economy, the privilege of primogeniture attaches to all, and every son and daughter of Adam is an heir to an infinite patrimony. 7. If I own an exquisite picture or statue, it is mine exclusively. Even though publicly exhibited, but few could be charmed by its beauties at the same time. It is incapable of bestowing a pleasure simultaneous and universal. But not so of the beauty of a moral sentiment; not so of the glow of sublime emotion; not so of the feelings of conscious purity and rectitude. These shed rapture upon all, without deprivation of any; may be imparted and still possessed; transferred to millions, yet never surrendered; carried out of the world, and still left in it. These may imparadise mankind, and, undiluted, unattenuated, be sent round the whole orb of being. 8. Let education, then, teach children this great truth, written as it is on the fore-front of the universe, that God has so constituted this world into which he has sent them, that whatever is really and truly valuable may be possessed by all, and possessed in exhaustless abundance. 9. And now, you, my friends, who feel that you are patriots and lovers of mankind, what bulwarks, what ramparts for freedom can you devise, so endurable and impregnable as intelligence and virtue? Parents, among the happy groups of children whom have at home, more dear to you than -you have not a son nor a daughter who, in this world of temptation, is not destined to encounter perils more dangerous than to walk a bridge of a single plank over a dark and sweeping torrent beneath. 10. But it is in your power and at your option, with the means which Providence will graciously vouchsafe, to give them that firmness of intellectual movement and that keenness of moral vision, that light of knowledge and that omnipotence of virtue, by which, in the hour of trial, they will be able to walk with unfaltering step over the deep and yawning abyss below, and to reach the opposite shore in safety and honor and happiness. LXVIII. THE HOUR OF PRAYER. 1. Child, amid the flowers at play, Mother, with thine earnest eye 2. Traveler, in the stranger's land, Lift the heart and bend the knee! |