28 EDUCATION 



Education was seen to be a human need and a human right; the 

 one means whereby a man, whether as an individual or as a citizen 

 of an earthly or a heavenly kingdom, may fit himself to lead a noble 

 and helpful life. It is, therefore, the need and the right not of a class 

 nor of a sex, nor of a profession merely, but of all. Belief in the 

 equality and kinship of men became a passion; and whatever laws 

 or institutions are a denial of this faith were to be abrogated and 

 abolished. Old things must pass away or re-live in the new spirit. 

 It is the advent of the whole people, coming with mad riot and battle 

 and celebrating its triumph in the glare of burning palaces, amidst 

 the ruins of a falling world. 



Universal education is a postulate of democracy which now first 

 becomes self-conscious and understands that its rule is incompatible 

 with privilege, slavery, and every kind of oppression and injustice. 

 The people are the whole mass of men and women and, if they are to 

 rule, they must have the knowledge and wisdom which nothing but 

 education can impart. As all have the same divm.3 origin and end, 

 all must be permitted to drink at the same eternal fountain-head of 

 truth, goodness, and love. Hence it is the duty of individuals, 

 families, states, and churches to bend their thoughts and energies to 

 open ways and to provide opportunities for the education of all, that 

 all may become intelligent, free, strong, and self-controlled. Social 

 organizations are for the sake of men, and only the virtuous and en- 

 lightened can properly cherish and maintain the domestic, political, 

 and religious institutions which consecrate and protect equal rights 

 and liberties. The sense of the need of universal education was 

 awakened by the growing consciousness that henceforth government 

 was to be controlled more and more by the popular will, which, to be 

 beneficent, must be enlightened. As the ideal of life became more 

 comprehensive, the idea of education widened until it embraced the 

 whole people and every interest. The aim is first of all practical, 

 the formation of individuals and citizens, whose character and in- 

 telligence shall fit them to do well, each in his own sphere, the thou- 

 sand things which civil society implies and requires. But if education 

 is to be made universal, it must be organized and supported by the 

 state through a system of free schools brought within the reach of all, 

 which it alone has the means to establish and maintain. The belief 

 that education should be universal and the recognition of the fact that 

 it can be made so only through a system of public schools, for which 

 all are taxed, have given the impulse to the most characteristic 

 developments of educational ideas during the nineteenth century. 

 The ancient ideals of intellectual culture and moral discipline it did 

 not transcend, but sought to give them general application; and the 

 success with which this has been accomplished is largely due to the 

 influence which those ideals have exercised on the modern mind. 



