In Maine It Is Demanded That The Towns - The Whole
Country Is Divided Into What Are Called Towns - Shall Make Suitable
Provision At Their Own Expense For The Support And Maintenance Of
Public Schools.
Some of these constitutional enactments are most magniloquently
worded, but not always with precise grammatical correctness.
That
for the famous Bay State of Massachusetts runs as follows: "Wisdom
and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body
of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights
and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities
and advantages of education in the various parts of the country and
among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of
the legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this
commonwealth, to cherish the interest of literature and the
sciences, and of all seminaries of them, especially the University
at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools, in the towns; to
encourage private societies and public institutions by rewards and
immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences,
commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the
country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity
and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and
frugality, honesty and punctuality in all their dealings;
sincerity, good humor, and all social affections and generous
sentiments among the people." I must confess that, had the words
of that little constitutional enactment been made known to me
before I had seen its practical results, I should not have put much
faith in it. Of all the public schools I have ever seen - by public
schools I mean schools for the people at large maintained at public
cost - those of Massachusetts are, I think, the best. But of all
the educational enactments which I ever read, that of the same
State is, I should say, the worst. In Texas now, of which as a
State the people of Massachusetts do not think much, they have done
it better: "A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the
preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, it shall be
the duty of the legislature of this State to make suitable
provision for the support and maintenance of public schools." So
say the Texans; but then the Texans had the advantage of a later
experience than any which fell in the way of the constitution-
makers of Massachusetts.
There is something of the magniloquence of the French style - of the
liberty, equality, and fraternity mode of eloquence - in the
preambles of most of these constitutions, which, but for their
success, would have seemed to have prophesied loudly of failure.
Those of New York and Pennsylvania are the least so, and that of
Massachusetts by far the most violently magniloquent. They
generally commence by thanking God for the present civil and
religious liberty of the people, and by declaring that all men are
born free and equal. New York and Pennsylvania, however, refrain
from any such very general remarks.
I am well aware that all these constitutional enactments are not
likely to obtain much credit in England. It is not only that grand
phrases fail to convince us, but that they carry to our senses
almost an assurance of their own inefficiency. When we hear that a
people have declared their intention of being henceforward better
than their neighbors, and going upon a new theory that shall lead
them direct to a terrestrial paradise, we button up our pockets and
lock up our spoons. And that is what we have done very much as
regards the Americans. We have walked with them and talked with
them, and bought with them and sold with them; but we have
mistrusted them as to their internal habits and modes of life,
thinking that their philanthropy was pretentious and that their
theories were vague. Many cities in the States are but skeletons
of towns, the streets being there, and the houses numbered - but not
one house built out of ten that have been so counted up. We have
regarded their institutions as we regard those cities, and have
been specially willing so to consider them because of the fine
language in which they have been paraded before us. They have been
regarded as the skeletons of philanthropical systems, to which
blood and flesh and muscle, and even skin, are wanting. But it is
at least but fair to inquire how far the promise made has been
carried out. The elaborate wordings of the constitutions made by
the French politicians in the days of their great revolution have
always been to us no more than so many written grimaces; but we
should not have continued so to regard them had the political
liberty which they promised followed upon the promises so
magniloquently made. As regards education in the States - at any
rate in the Northern and Western States - I think that the
assurances put forth in the various written constitutions have been
kept. If this be so, an American citizen, let him be ever so
arrogant, ever so impudent if you will, is at any rate a civilized
being, and on the road to that cultivation which will sooner or
later divest him of his arrogance. Emollit mores. We quote here
our old friend the colonel again. If a gentleman be compelled to
confine his classical allusions to one quotation, he cannot do
better than hang by that.
But has education been so general, and has it had the desired
result? In the City of Boston, as I have said, I found that in
1857 about one-eighth of the whole population were then on the
books of the free public schools as pupils, and that about one-
ninth of the population formed the average daily attendance. To
these numbers of course must be added all pupils of the richer
classes - those for whose education their parents chose to pay. As
nearly as I can learn, the average duration of each pupil's
schooling is six years, and if this be figured out statistically, I
think it will show that education in Boston reaches a very large
majority - I might almost say the whole - of the population.
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