TO INDIVIDUALS AND TO STATES. 249 



counties, is an actual source of money-loss to those who 

 employ them? The more valuable labour which they 

 would give, if better educated, would far more than 

 repay the employer for the small addition to his outlay 

 which a tax to uphold free-schools for all would entail 

 upon him. My reader may smile at the ignorance of 

 my friend s servant in this English county of Durham, 

 where I write, who, when asked two days ago if the 

 whole of a particular kind of hay was consumed, declared 

 that &quot; there was not a sentiment of it left. 1 Yet this man 

 belongs to the better educated class of our labourers. A 

 Scotch hind would not have made such an improper use 

 of a word ; but a Dorsetshire labourer, if he had ever 

 heard the word at all, would probably have no idea 

 whatever either of its meaning or of its use. 



It is maintained by some among us, that the voluntary 

 principle is sufficient to provide both schools and clergy 

 for the whole people. But what a profound study of 

 human nature teaches, as to the difference between the 

 religious principle and the desire of knowledge in the 

 human breast, is fully confirmed by the experience of all 

 the new countries of North America. The former pos 

 sesses a certain strength in every breast, and is often 

 most powerful where the latter is least so. The reve 

 rence for a Supreme Being, and the necessity of some 

 form of worship, is inborn ; the desire for knowledge 

 has in most cases to be created by the imparting of 

 instruction, and increases with what it obtains or collects. 

 Thus, while religion may support itself, and may be left 

 without aid from the State in a large and populous com 

 munity, it is not so with education. Not feeling the 

 want of knowledge, the people may be content to remain 

 in ignorance. But as it is the interest of the State that 

 the talents of every citizen should by education be made 

 most available for the good of all as it is, in fact, a 

 necessity to the permanent existence of a free State it 



