"Lycurgus," says Plutarch, "resolved the whole business of legislation into the bringing up of youth." When our legisla tors shall have learnt wisdom from the Spartan, they will acquire, as he acquired, the power of remoulding the national character. At present they do not possess it. They can punish, but they have yet to learn how to prevent. They have jails and penitentiaries, handcuffs and treadmills, lawyers and constables, solemn oaths and penal codes; they have yet to learn that these form not men to virtue, though they often make them hypocrites in vice. They have yet to learn the impotence of fear, and the omnipotence of reason.

Let our representatives learn all this, or let us change our representatives. He who knows not the reforming power of National Education, is unqualified to sit in the councils of a nation: and he who knows its power, yet seeks to withhold its benefits from the humblest of his fellow-citizens, still less deserves their confidence or their suffrages.

I have stated the reasons that induce me to regard a State Education as the first object to obtain which the people should combine their exertions and unite their votes. If these reasons be good, let the people awake to action. As they value the noble institutions of America, as they would save their country from the convulsions of a bloody revolution, as they would reform the crying abuses of inequality, as they would check the frightful enormities of vice, as they would build up virtue in the human heart, cherish kindness in the human bosom, and cultivate intelligence in the human mind-in a word, as they value their own and their children's enduring welfare, let them awake to action. Let them unite for action. The struggle is for no paltry prize; it is for the reality of those blessings which were declared ours half a century ago. This is the time and this the country for such a struggle. Soon may it commence, and speedily as happily may it terminate!

R. D. OWEN.

PLAN OF

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

THE industrious classes have been called the bone and marrow. of the nation; but they are in fact the nation itself. The fruits of their industry are the nation's wealth; their moral integrity and physical health is the nation's strength; their ease and independence is the nation's prosperity; their intellectual intelligence is the nation's hope. Where the producing labourer and useful artisan eat well, sleep well, live comfortably, think correctly, speak fearlessly, and act uprightly, the nation is happy, free, and wise. Has such a nation ever been? No. Can such a nation ever be? Answer, men of industry of the United" States! If such can be, it is here. If such is to be, it must be your work

Here the people govern; and you are the people.

And you are becoming apprized of this. You are learning your power. In New-York, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Baltimore, you have looked round and distinguished that all is not well. In Philadelphia you have tried your strength; in New-York you have proved it In New-York, six thousand votes have appeared at once in the ballot box, on which you had written REFORM.

This has been, indeed, a show of strength, and a sign of determination. As such it has been hailed far and wide, by every friend of human improvement. Through the counties of this powerful state, every mind looks to the metropolis. There they have touched the lever who alone can move it. The people have aroused themselves where they are the strongest-in the cities. There at length they have said, "We have the power, and we will use it." Yes, men of industry! you have the power; and it is now with you wisely to steer the vessel of the state into safe harbour, or rashly to peril it in the deeps and shallows of anarchy and stormy contention.

I

Much, I will not say all, depends on your first move. will not say all, because I believe that, even in spite of errors

and blunders, the national institutions, and the good sense which they, in spite of all countervailing influences, have suffis ced to generate, would lead you right at last. But much depends upon your first move. The honour of the cause depends upon it the honour of the nation in the eyes of the world depends upon it; the honour of the nation, and your own honour in your own eyes depend upon it. Move then warily. Take one step at a time, and let that step be always such as you can keep. He who draws back is always weakened; and he who hurries forward with blind speed, must always draw back or stumble. Touch skilfully as many minor abuses as circumstances and your own knowledge may permit. Check the banks; limit or repeal charters; tax church property; investigate the nature of its tenure; secure the more immediate interests of the working classes, by procuring the legal acknowledgment of their claims where now they are unheard; all this will be important, and well, and of immediate utility, if done wisely. But as respects great measures (and all such as above enumerated, are but trifling; are but the lopping off of branches, not the severing of the root) as respects great measures, attempt but one at a time; speak of but one at a time; if possible, think of but one at a time. Let one, and one great measure, alone engross for along season, your thoughts and unite your efforts. Recall your own youth, and you will understand what that measure ought to be. Look at your children, and you can never forget it. Examine yourselves-weigh your own deficiencies, and you will appreciate all its importance, and its omnipotence. Li Pledge yourselves, then, men of industry! pledge yourselves," minds, hearts, and votes, to that one measures that saving, that regenerating, that omnipotent measure. That one measure, by which alone childhood may find sure protection; by which alone youth may be made wise, industrious, moral, and happy;" by which alone the citizens of this land may be made, in very deed, free and equal. That measure you know it. It is NATIONAL, RATIONAL, REPUBLICAN EDUCATION; FREE FOR ALL AT THE EXPENSE OF ALL; CONDUCTED UNDER THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE STATE, AT THE EXPENSE OF THE STATE, AND FOR THE HONOUR, THE HAPPINESS, THE VIRTUE, the salvaTION OF THE STATE.

Until equality be planted in the mind, in the habits, in the manners, in the feelings, think not it can ever be in the condi tion. Equalize fortunes at this hour, and knavery in one year would have beggared honesty; improvidence would have dissipated its possessions; credulous simplicity would have yielded

all to the crafty hypocrite; error would still deceive ignorance, and a ready tongue and a forward spirit, would still banish? modest worth to the shade.

But it is not enough to forbear from rash and futile measures; they should not be talked about. Hot heads and hasty spirits will indeed urge to false movements, seek to outstrip time and circumstance, and strain to make effects precede their preparing causes. But a self-respecting people will check the zeal of imprudence, and the intemperate haste of unreasoning or falsereckoning inexperience. They will begin well, that they may end well; they will move slowly and firmly, that they may move unitedly and surely; they will begin with what touches the interests, and may convince the understandings of the great body of the nation, that opposition may be weak and co-operation strong. They will unite on that measure without which every other must be ineffectual, and which must be preparatory to every reform. They will unite on that measure, which, in principle, is so righteous, that the hypocrite dare not openly slander it; so constitutional, that the crooked politician dare not openly oppose it; so universally beneficial, that not one honest man can lift his voice against it.

Unite, then, men of industry! on this measure, and you disarm your enemies; unite on this measure, and all the sound part of the population are your friends. The vote of every righteous parent and every honest man will drop into your hallot box; and your ticket shall carry at the first general struggle, not in your city only, but throughout your state.

Fix

Take now then betimes your stand, men of industry! Organize yourselves, prepare your minds, strengthen your numbers, turn a deaf ear to the clamour of enemies; defeat by order, and union, and steady perseverance, the tricks of roguery. your eyes upon the great object-the salvation and regeneration of human kind, by means of the rational education and protection of youth. Study this great object in all its bearings; follow it out in all its consequences and effects; digest the means by which it may be secured; let it engage your thoughts and supply your conversations; speak of it at home and abroad; win to it the attention of your wives and of your children themselves; interest all you love, and all you know, and, if possible, all with whom you come in contact, in weighing its advantages, and advancing its execution!

Bear in mind, men of industry! that you are the people; and that here, by acknowledged right and acknowledged law, the people govern. Govern then for yourselves and your children,

and for the nation of which you now form the hands, and the feet, and the trunk, and of which you must form the head before the head can be in union with the body it regulates. Govern as fathers as well as citizens, as citizens as well as fathers. Bear in mind that the stay and prop of liberty is knowledge; that the basis of just government is rational educa→ tion, and, that the life of a republic is equal education. Lay then the true foundation of practical republicanism. Bind all your efforts to the one great measure of a uniform plan of education for all the children and youth of your several states; and let that plan be in perfect unison with the nature of man, the nature of things, and with the declaration of your country #all men are free und equal.ại nữ 987 2 mpak

THE measure I am about to suggest, whenever adopted, will, in the outset, alleviate those popular distresses whose poignancy and rapid increase weigh on the heart of philanthropy, and crush the best hopes of enlightened patriotism. It must further, when carried into full effect, work the radical cure of every disease which now afflicts the body politic, and build up for this nation a sound constitution, embracing at once, public prosperity, individual integrity, and universal happiness.

This measure, my friends, has been long present to my mind as befitting the adoption of the American people; as alone calculated to form an enlightened, a virtuous, and a happy community; as alone capable of supplying a remedy to the evils under which we groan; as alone commensurate with the interests of the human family, and consistent with the political institutions of this great confederated republic. โ

I had occasion formerly to observe, in allusion to the efforts already made, and yet making, in the cause of popular instruction, more or less throughout the Union, that as yet, the true principle has not been hit, and that until it be hit, all reform must be slow and inefficient.

The noble example of New-England has been imitated by other states, until all not possessed of common schools blush for the popular remissness. But, after all, how can_common schools, under their best form, and in fullest supply, effect even the purpose which they have in view.

The object proposed by common schools (if I rightly understand it) is to impart to the whole population those means for