1857.] Education — Centralization. -146 



at least a professed object in view, and this is a good one. It is to 

 diffuse intelligence in the mass ; it is to educate all the people. 

 And so much is said of and about " popular education," I am half 

 persuaded that the impression is quite general that the thing itself 

 is already accomplished. I am sure we have taken too much upon 

 trust — more, much more, then f\icts will warrant. While the Gov- 

 ernments of the Old World have gone to one extreme of represent- 

 ing the people not only incapable of improvement, but in a condition 

 of ignorance and degradation greater and more hopeless than truth 

 would show, was an opportunity offered for the experiment, may wo 

 not have leaned too far over to the opposite pole, in believing there 

 is in universal humanity not only the capability of a prodigious ex- 

 pansion, but that i7, humanity, at least in our own country, is 

 approximating a culminating point. The theory may be correct. It 

 Undoubtedly is. If not, then our doctrine of self-government falls 

 to the ground, and the whole superstructure of our boasted free 

 government falls with it. But those who adopt the principle of self- 

 government, as within the compass of every man, supposed that self 

 — that man — to be enlightened to a limited degree, at least, as 

 to what is implied in the idea of A PEOPLE governing them- 

 selves. That Liberty is not lawlessness. Without intelligence 

 and virtue, which are necessary pre-requisites to self-government, it 

 is impossible long to maintain republican institutions. Ignorance 

 and corruption are incompatible with the genius of our institutions. 

 Now, what is the tendency of the age ? Which way are we moving? 

 That great changes are taking place, and that, too, on a large scale, 

 and in the very structure of society, is most apparent. While it is 

 easy to assign causes that have combined in eventuating the changes, 

 the moral bearings of these changes upon the country at large are 

 not so apparent. They must be certain and powerful — but what 

 their character ? This is the question to be solved. One example 

 of the many changes silently but ceaselessly going on, are the ratio3 

 of increase between the civic and rural population, especially in the 

 free States. 



The increase in towns and cities in the State of Ohio, containincr 

 over 6,000 inhabitants, was, from 1840 to 1850, 200 per cent. 

 Other classes covering our vast fields agricultural, increase 22 per 

 cent. In 1840, the rural population to the civic, was as twenty to 

 one ; in 1850, as nine to one ; in 1860, the civic will nearly equal the 



