PROPER EDUCATION IN GERMANY.

ON the contrary, Germany, and especially Prussia, would never have won so brilliant victories, and made so fast conquests in France (in 1870 and 1871,) if they had not beforǝ founded good schools, and created a proper national education. Even American journals acknowledge the fact that the Germans owe the superiority of their arms to their intellectual ascendency. As long as the Germans are better educated than the French, they need not be afraid of their arms.

OUR SCHOOLS ARE OUR BULWARKS.

America, too, is secure against a foreign enemy, if she proceeds vigorously on the path of culture. Not in foreign arms, but in our midst is the enemy; in the ignorance and vileness of our own citizens menaces the danger; in the ignorance of the many, in the vileness of the few, who lead the many to their ruin. America's breast-works are not her armies, fleets and iron-clad vessels, with all the men who are instructed in tactics at public expense, are not the swords and guns of our armories; are not powder and cannons, not the fortresses of stone, built on the coasts of our oceans and lakes; they could all be destroyed during night-time, and still the nation would be as secure as now. The strongest bulwarks of the United States are her schools. cheap elementary book, or the vane of her school-house is a better symbol of the nation than is the star spangled banner. The printing-press does more than the cannon, is more powerful than the sword. President J. Monroe said appropriately (in his writing: the people-the sovereigns:) "An enlightened people is able to organize the best form of government which human wisdom can de

The

vise, and may safely hope to maintain it for any length." Be it, therefore, our most important care to educate well the people; be it the watch-word of our civil activity: "Improvement of our public schools." Then our people will occupy a high rank among the nations of the earth, and prosperity, power and glory will abide the heritage of our prosterity.

INFLUENCE OF THE PUBLIC LIFE UPON NATIONAL

EDUCATION

Education of man is not ended with the instruction he has received in school; if considered in the strictest sense, it is never finished; but it comprehends two periods which are quite dissimilar from each other: the period of childhood, and that of the mature age. I repeat what I said in another essay (national education in Republics)-education, in general, is developement and cultivation of human faculties; therefore it must be the same in both periods, though it is effected by different agencies. We all know that education of the child is brought about by the schools, by instruction of the teacher.

EDUCATION OF THE FULL GROWN MAN.

The means which influence the combined education of man are probably not so generally known: There are, principally, four of them, namely: the political, the industrial, the ecclesiastic and the literary power of the people. Its political power is represented by the State, its industrial by trade and commerce, its ecclesiastic by the Church, its literary by the press. Let us, in a few words, examine these four powers, and see what influence they probably exert in the education of the people.

BRIGHT SIDE OF THE NATIONAL AGENCIES OF

EDUCATION.

It is evident that trade and commerce, press and politics promote activity of men. Business instigates the desire for gain and the spirit of enterprise to great exertions, and increases, thereby, the development of the forces of the State. Commerce advances the connection between the citizens of a State and the foreign nations; invites the inventive spirit, and subdues all elements. The press rouses to the same activity and perseverance; it provides us the best and cheapest books, by the journals it gives us the news from all parts of the world. The State, too, promotes the activity of mind; every citizen has his share of the public wealth and woe, and of the right of suffrage; all grand questions are left to the decision of the people; the career of public offices is open to every-one. The Church (without distinction of the different sects) venerates Jesus of Nazareth; its ministers recommend the common virtues, warn against the prevalent vices, and tell us that we should respect and love also the poor and humble. These are some of the good sides of the four great national forces; but every one has also its peculiar faults which are apt to misdirect the nation, and to hinder thereby the general education of the people. Let us speak also from these, and, in order to incur not the suspicion of partiality, I make free to use the words of an American, Theodore Parker, who must know best his country-men.

FAULTS OF THE NATIONAL FORCES OF EDUCATION. FAULTS OF THE STATE.

"The men" he says, "whom we politically honor, choosing them to the highest offices, are sometimes only

good soldiers, perhaps also heroes, but have, for the rest, conscience of the most vulgar pattern. If you look at the actions of the chief political parties, you see no more respect for justice in the politics of either party, than in the politics of the nation. One part goes for the dollar; the other for the majority, leaving the good of the smaller number to most uncertain mercies. Falsehood, a desire for the power and distinction of officesthese vices are sown with a pretty even hand upon both parties."

*Theodore Parker, speeches and addresses, 2nd vol.

FAULTS OF THE CHURCH.

The Church has the same faults as the State. It teaches injustice by continually referring to the might of God, not his justice; to his ability and will to damn mankind. The churches have little love to truth, except to canonized truth. They represent the average intelligence of society, hence, while keeping the old, they welcome not the new. They dishonor free thinking, and venerate constrained believing. Few scientific men believe the Bible account of the creation, or that of the formation of woman, and of the deluge. The clerical men, who have no faith in these stories, not only leave the people to think them true, but encourage men in the belief, and calumniate the men of science. In morals, as well as science, the Church is on the anti-liberal side, afraid of progress, conservative and chilling. It passes, like that priest and Levite, on the other side of the least developed classes of society, leaving the slave, the pauper, and the criminal to their fate-hastening to strike hands with the thriv

ing or rich. These faults are shared in the main by all sects-some have them in the common and some in a more eminent degree.

FAULTS OF BUSINESS.

The business of the land has also certain vices of its own; it does not lead the employer to help the operative as a man; only to use him as a tool, merely, for industrial purposes. The average merchant cares little whether his ship brings cloth and cotton or opium and rum. The average capitalist does not wish the stock of his manufacturing company divided into small shares, SO that the operatives can invest their savings therein, and have a portion of the large dividends of the rich.

FAULTS OF THE PRESS.

It

"The press also has certain vices of its own. represents only the public opinion of the time. Of all literature, the newspapers come most into contact with men-they are the literature of the people, and they have, besides the general vices of our politics, still the special faults of the particular party for which they are written.

So, notwithstanding the good influence of these four modes of national activity in educating the grown men of America, they do not afford the highest teaching which the people require to realize the idea of a perfect free State. The State does not teach perfect justice; the Church does neither teach that nor love of truth. Business does not teach perfect morality; and the average literature which falls into the hands of the millions teaches men to respect public opinion more than absolute truth.