THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 

 VOL. XIII.] JUNE, 1832. [No. 78. 



POLITICAL EDUCATION. 



" The most active or busy man, that hath been or can be, hath, no question, many 

 vacant times of leisure : and then the question is but how those spaces and times of lei- 

 sure shall be filled or spent ; whether in pleasures or in studies." 



Advancement of Learning , lib. 1. 



CITIZENSHIP, like every other relation of life, has its peculiar duties, 

 rights, and privileges, with which it imports the citizen to be thoroughly 

 acquainted, because the knowledge he possesses of their nature, extent, 

 and importance, must ever be the measure of his usefulness and respect- 

 ability, as a member of the commonwealth. To communicate this know- 

 ledge is the object of a particular kind of instruction or discipline, which 

 has with propriety been called a political education. The proposition, then, 

 that every man should receive this kind of education, is the same as that 

 every citizen should be taught what functions he has to discharge, what 

 rights to exert and defend, what engagements he is placed under to his 

 country, and what interests he is bound to watch over and protect. This 

 is the political information we would impart to every man in England. 

 Those who object to its unlimited diffusion must take their choice of one 

 of the three following absurdities : they must maintain that there are 

 classes of the people who ought not to be considered in the light of citi- 

 zens ; or they must say that citizenship has no peculiar rights and duties, 

 the correct apprehension of which may be facilitated by education ; or they 

 must go yet a step further in folly, and contend, that duties are not likely 

 to be the better performed for being the better understood ; nor rights to 

 be the more discreetly exercised for having their limits ascertained with the 

 greater precision ; nor privileges to be the more regarded for having their 

 value the more clearly pointed out and illustrated. One of these three 

 positions the objectors are compellable to take up ; for if it be true that 

 every man in the community is a citizen, and if citizenship has its proper 

 obligations and rights, and if those who are instructed in their rights and 

 obligations are likely to exercise the former and fulfil the latter more 

 discreetly, firmly, intelligently, and patriotically, than those who are 

 acquainted with them but imperfectly, or not at all, then is the argument 

 for the political education of all classes of the people as complete as any 

 argument can be. 



We do not hesitate to say, that we would have every man in the country 

 a politician. To be a politician, does not consist, as some shallow persons 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XIII. No. 78. 2 S 



