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government. It has no history, and scarcely annals. It counts days rather than centuries. A mighty experiment is acted there. It might need a rein for its tossing neck and impatient foot, to guide it to the goal. The bark, launched on such a sea of rocks and breakers, demands a powerful helm. The people are the power, the rule, the life, of all: Senatus Popu lusque. None could ever so require to be taught. Education is the star of their hope and their guidance. That star is fixed. As the school-house rises amidst the landscape of New England, on the far shores of Missouri and Missisippi, and at the very base of the Rocky Mountains,-there is the emphatic pawn, which that great Republic gives to an attentive world, of enlightened freedom, extending civilization, and pure religion. When America and Britain, so essentially one, contend, it is not War but Sedition.

The United States, whether always on the best principles or not, have begun the work of Education in right earnest. Between them and our Country there are many marked distinctions in the manner of undertaking it. It has seized a far more powerful hold upon their public mind. Their action is far more ramified and commanding. A much stronger, and a far more living, power is infused into the administrations. More individual votaries, more noble enthusiasts, are at work. We take it up as a necessity, slowly felt and heavily imposed: they cherish it as a passion and explore it as a science. It is every one's

delight. The statesman will not descant on suffrage but with this guidance: the œconomist will not treat of barter but with this check: the patriot will not appeal to liberty but with this inspiration. On our side of the Atlantic there are none of those scorching fulminations hurled at country, state, people, with which their orators flame amazement." They scoff, they

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satirise, they taunt, they jeer, the mass of ignorance among them. They declare from on high that there are nearly 2,000,000 children in the Union untaught. They avail themselves of inauguration, festivity, holiday, when spirits can little brook reproof, to cast the charge into the nation's teeth. Tribune and pulpit lend their utmost power to the object. Nothing will they accept,-no bond, no handsel,-but universal education. There is a fervour in their language, and a dauntlessness in their bearing, bespeaking the generosity of their ambition, and worthy the majesty of their cause. With their 173 colleges and 16,233 students, -their 3242 academies with their 164,159 scholars,— their 47,209 primary schools with their 1,845,264 pupils, they wield a mighty, though insufficient, apparatus. Hail Columbia! Thy star-emblazoned flag waves over no empty, barren, freedom! From the rampart of olden institutions, of which we are neither wearied nor ashamed, we can gratefully honour thee, O banner! never to be mocked, but most we honour thee, in thy peaceful folds! We quarrel not with the liberty which thou dost assert, nor with the

resistance which thou didst rally! Thine was a righteous quarrel! Be thou ever ensign of the wise, the good, the free!

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Quis genus Æneadum, quis Troja nesciat urbem ?
Virtutesque, virosque, et tanti incendia belli ?
Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora,-

It is a pleasing thought that the Education of the world is not quite neglected. Our Missionary Societies gather, daily, hundreds of thousands of children beneath their care. The Missionary is the Schoolmaster wherever he sets his foot.

He runs to and

Nor is every hea

fro, and knowledge is increased. then nation ignorant and rude. China welcomes our labours with its three hundred millions of people, half of whom at least can read.† The machinery of learning is well established, its thinking classes are divided into four literary orders, and not a man can rise to any office of dignity and trust but as he abides the most searching and prolonged examination into his educated fitness. This is not simply a lovely theory or a bare possibility: it is the unvarying practice.

* "Who can be ignorant of the Ænean race and their city of Troy? Of their valour, their heroes, and the provocations of their noble resistance? We carry not in our bosom hearts quite so unexcitable as such ignorance would suppose."-Virg: Æneid: lib. i. 571, &c.

+ Medhurst's China.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE STATISTICS OF DOMESTIC EDUCATION.

Ir is very necessary that, in our endeavour to estimate the condition of our population as to the means of culture and improvement, we should adopt proper rules for enquiring into its sections and proportions. In the absence of sound information, and in the neglect of rigid proof, we may soon bewilder ourselves,— as the slightest deviation from a right line leads to every divergence.

The common computation gives us, on an average, the one-fourth of our population as children between five and fifteen years of age. About one-fourth part of the population of the American United States is between the ages of four and sixteen. In Massachusetts it is so, almost without a fraction. Says the eloquent Horace Mann, in his Oration before the Authorities of the City of Boston, July 4, 1842,"Although there may be slight variations from this ratio in other States, yet undoubtedly the number four is an integer, by far nearer than any other that could be taken, which, when compared with unity or one, would show the ratio between the whole population,

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and the number of children within them, between the ages of four and sixteen years." The variation is not sufficiently great between the Old and the New Country to affect the argument. But this cannot be the general period for education among the industrious classes. The latter age is too late, and the former is not sufficiently early. The youth, who is fifteen years old, is wanted for labour, and long before. The child of five ought to have been under instruction at least two years before. From three to thirteen years the amount is a little greater than from five to fifteen, and it somewhat exceeds the fourth. But that fourth, though of the educable age, cannot be seen in the general teaching institutions of any country, much less in schools of a partly gratuitous character. It includes not only the offspring of the poor, but likewise of the wealthy and middle orders.

The common computation of statesmen, in their schemes of legislated instruction, has given the eighth of the population as the proper figure for its scope. This, doubtless, anticipates the absorption of many present schools in such a national system. It would seem that it must supersede almost all of a humbler character.

Perfect estimates are not to be obtained.

The fol

lowing are founded upon the best documentary evidence. Parliament has stamped its sanction upon it. It comes to us in the shape of its corrected and authorised reports.

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