FAEMEKS' mSTITUTES. 221 



From the first of these communities go the dangerous classes. From the 

 second, those which give stability to the State, — good government in town, 

 county, State, and nation, — the development of science and pure religion. 



The best of these conditions is adapted to the poorest communities. If the 

 house be of logs let it be a "good log house," well put up, with substantial and 

 well fitting windows and doors, and comfortably seated. Let the surroundings 

 be neat and all well kept. There is nothing to prevent learning going on in 

 such a place. 



See that glaring white two-story framed house standing about two rods from 

 the road, with a crooked red fence in front, and the yard ornamented with bull 

 thistles. Step along. Now look at that comely log house. The cracks glis- 

 ten with lime mortar ; a honey-suckle is trained over the door ; a lilac bush 

 stands here, a rose bush there, a bed of tulips in this place, and pansies in that, 

 and here and there, not far off, an apple tree by the beech stump, and a cherry 

 tree by the maple, and a pear tree by the basswood stump. Will you stop at 

 the frame or the log house for good manners, good taste, refinement, intelli- 

 gence? Nothing more is needed than that the log school-house bear the same 

 relation to all other school-houses, both log and frame, that our log dwelling 

 bears to all other dwellings. 



3. A long time after John Quincy Adams had been President of the United 

 States he was president of a school meeting. It is unfortunate every way for 

 the well-to-do to become indifferent to common schools. The usefulness of the 

 common schools is gone when they become "Jim Crow" institutions. "Level 

 up" the schools. This requires the help of the more favored. There must be 

 no flagging here. If men of affluence turn their backs upon the common schools, 

 allowin'g them to fall into bad repute, they will be in just as bad order among 

 the poorer classes. It will be poor religion, bad policy, and wretched patriot- 

 ism to allow this. 



4. The school fund must come of taxation, — in this way and no other. I lay 

 this down as a palpable truism. 



5. Then the scholars must go to school, voluntarily if they will, made to go if 

 they won't — "taxation and representation." It is robbery to tax me to educate 

 the"children and they not represent me in the school-room. Their attendance 

 should be enforced by all suitable pains and penalties. Do you cry out against 

 such an infringement of liberty? It is liberty regulated by law. And which is 

 better, the liberty of the street, of bad associations, of the schools of vice which 

 the idle are always sure to find, and of the jails and penitentiaries into which 

 those who graduate from these schools are sure to step, or the liberty of the 

 school -room, opening to a useful and honorable career? 



5. All text books sliould be furnished free. This will relieve the poor of quite 

 a burden, and poor children the mortification of having to use, as often hap- 

 pens, dilapidated and inferior books. 



6. The State sliould comfortably clothe those whom the parents either cannot 

 or will not clothe. Those who can bat won't suitably clothe their children for 

 the school-room should be taxed to reimburse the State. The supervisor should 

 have charge of the whole matter, subject to an appeal to the county board. 



This will sound strange, but do not vote too soon. Give the subject due con- 

 sideration. There is no alternative between general enlightenment and general 

 ignorance but despotism, open or disguised, and the worse if disguised. The 

 world never saw anything quite as bad as the despotism of slavery and the bull- 

 dozers. 



