Some Reasons for the Immediate Establishment of a National System of Education for the United States

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Loyal Publication Society, 1865 - Education - 22 pages

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Page 19 - By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere ; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime.
Page 19 - For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question whether he himself have or have not children to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property and life and the peace of society are secured.
Page 19 - ... to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security, beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well-principled moral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time, when, in the villages and farm houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep within unbarred doors.
Page 20 - They ask it at our hands, and the world expects us to do it; because in the very act of emancipation there is the sacred promise to educate. Slavery has kept the word education out of our national constitution. Now four millions of starved minds implore its introduction .... Their former masters...
Page 20 - We have four millions of liberated slaves who should be educated. They ask it of our hands, and the world expects us to do it ; because in the very act of emancipation there is the sacred promise to educate. Slavery has kept the word education out of our constitution.
Page 19 - ... has really prospered have been those where the church or state, or both in conjunction, have considered its advancement their business and duty. Holland and Germany, whether Catholic or Protestant, and the United States of America, may be readily cited as evidences. The accomplishment of a similar work requires the ascendency of general and permanent power, such as that of* the state and its enactments; or of another moral authority ever present and equally enduring, — the church and its militia....
Page 19 - In this particular, New England may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a peculiar character. She early adopted and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the undoubted right, and the bounden duty of government, to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law.
Page 22 - It is our destiny and we must fulfill it. We must, therefore, establish a national system of free and universal culture upon the broadest basis of pure democratic republicanism, and then carry it into effect by the united wisdom and the resistless energy of a rich, powerful, intelligent, and Christian people. Such a system, suited to our thousand years of future growth and nameless millions of inhabitants, will place us at the head of the nations, while it becomes the progressive agency, the conservative...
Page 12 - ... and which were not by royal ordinance incorporated into the University; and all encouragements, by the way of subscription, or publication, to science and letters. The Royal University of France embraces the whole system of national education, and includes all the institutions for imparting instruction which are spread over the whole kingdom, from the lowest schools, up to the highest colleges. The term may thus be considered synonymous with the French national system of education. The University...
Page 19 - ... elementary schools, clearly indicated the prevailing spirit. The state and the church, on the question of popular instruction, are the only effective authorities. This is not a conjecture founded on general considerations ; it is a fact historically demonstrated. The only countries and times in which public education has really prospered have been those where the church or state, or both in conjunction, have considered its advancement their business and duty.

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