664 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to 0-0076 millimetre from the unpolished and 0*0085 from the polished 

 granite. That a polished surface of granite should weather more rapid- 

 ly than a rough one is perhaps hardly what might have been expected. 

 The same observer remarks that, though the polished surface of syenite 

 was still bright at the end of not more than three years, it was less 

 so than at first, and in particular that some figures indicating the 

 date, which he had written on it with a diamond, had become entirely 

 effaced. Granite has been employed for too short a time as a monu- 

 mental stone in our cemeteries to afford any ready means of measur- 

 ing even approximately its I'ate of weathering. Traces of decay in some 

 of its feldspar-crystals may be detected, yet in no case that I have 

 seen is the decay of a polished granite surface sensibly apparent after 

 exposure for fifteen or twenty years. That the polish will disappear, 

 and the surface will gradually roughen as the individual component 

 crystals are more or less easily attacked by the weather, is of course 

 sufficiently evident. Even the most durable granite will probably be 

 far surpassed in permanence by the best of our silicious sandstones. 

 But as yet the data do not exist for making any satisfactory compari- 

 son between them, Nature. 



-- 



THE STATE AS AN EDUCATOE.* 



By H. H. WILSON. 



OF all the institutions which we are proud to call American, none 

 makes so great an expenditure as our system of public education, 

 and none receives so little critical attention from those by whom it is 

 supported. It is seldom referred to except for purposes of flattery. 

 Of all the offspring of American liberty this is the pet, and, as usual, 

 it is the spoiled child. And this will probably remain so as long as 

 indiscriminate praise is more welcome than just criticism. 



I purpose, in the few minutes allotted to me, to discover, if possible, 

 the true sphere of the state in reference to the education of the young. 

 I shall use the word state in its broadest sense a community of per- 

 sons living within a limited territory and bound together by political 

 ties. If such a community has a right to exist, then it has a right to 

 do anything that is necessary to maintain that existence to appropri- 

 ate private property and even to take life itself. But, while the power 

 of the state is thus broad, its duty is proportionally narrow, namely, 

 to protect the person and property of the subject from the violence and 

 fraud of his fellows. While for this purpose no sacrifice is too great, 

 yet to exact from the subject more than is necessary for this purpose 

 is legalized spoliation ; for, when you take of a man's property more 



* Kead before the State Teachers' Association at Seward, Nebraska, April 1, 1880. 



