But aside from its political bearing, a general and well-conducted education is a matter of vast importance. Every man has a mind, which can never take its proper rank, and secure its highest enjoyment, without being enlightened; without a proper development of its power, and a suitable direction in applying them to practical purposes. A fire-side in Iceland, a land of frost and of poverty, becomes a scene of contentment and happiness, because it is surrounded by a reading population; and the long and dreary winter's nights pass pleasantly away, in the entertainment afforded by historical narration, or native poetry, or other means of mental cultivation. Every family is a school, and every child receives the rudiments of an education by his own fire-side. In civilized countries, valuable books constitute one of the cheapest, most domestic, and noblest amusements, for the enjoyment of which, however, a good education is an indispensable requisite.
But leaving this strain of general remark, it is proposed to give the subject a practical bearing, by a brief consideration, in the present number, of the importance of a legislative provision for the support of schools, and for the qualification and preparation of teachers.
A legislative provision for the support of schools is a matter of great importance. Every free government is bound by the principle of self-preservation to afford every necessary facility for the education of its whole population. And the most substantial aid which it has in its power to afford is, to furnish pecuniary assistance, by setting apart adequate funds, to bring the means of instruction alike within the reach of the poor and the rich. Schools, and especially common schools, are the _Nurseries of Freemen_; and not merely of those who are to exercise the important right of suffrage, but also, to an unknown extent, of those who are to sustain the weight of magistracy, and to wield the destinies of the nation. Many a man, during the short continuance of the American republic, who has risen to the highest stations of honor and of trust, who has surrounded his own name and that of his country with distinguished honor, and filled both continents with his fame, has grown up from the humblest circumstances in life, and has been indebted to the common schools of the country for the elements of his reputation and his usefulness; and but for the system of universal education, might have lived in obscurity, and never extended his influence beyond his native village. FRANKLIN, the statesman and the philosopher, was once a humble printer's boy; and had he lived in a country where the aspirations of genius are checked by the principle that every man must keep his place, and not attempt to rise above the condition in which he was born, he might have lived and died a merely respectable setter of types. DAVID RITTENHOUSE, the son of a plain farmer, was educated a goldsmith; and by his extraordinary mechanical genius, he invented a planetarium, which may justly be regarded as one of the mechanical wonders of the world. Pursuing his researches, he became one of the first practical astronomers of his time, and he succeeded the venerable Franklin as President of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia. ROGER SHERMAN, until the age of twenty-three, occupied a shoemaker's bench. To him it would have been injurious to apply the adage, '_Ne sutor ultra crepidam_.' To the acquirements of a good common school education, he added, to a respectable extent, the higher attainments of legal and political science; and no man brought into the councils of this country, at the trying period of the revolution, a sounder head, or a more patriotic heart. To these distinguished examples, hundreds of others might be added, who, if they have not fully equalled those that have been mentioned, in fame, have perhaps not fallen behind them in respectability and usefulness. And what has been true in this respect, in time past, is true at present, and is likely to be equally true in time to come. No man now fills a greater space in the national councils, than the son of a plain farmer in New-Hampshire, who commenced his brilliant career on the benches of a common school, in his native town. And no man can tell what future farmers' or mechanics' sons may occupy the highest and most responsible posts of the nation. In the free government of the United States, every man is, to a great extent, the artificer of his own fortune and fame. Common schools are the means by which native genius is to be, in the first instance, taught to put forth its strength, and by which it is to be raised from its obscurity.