362 HEALTH. 



fields, the private and the public. We do not desire that the one 

 should usurp the place of the other, or that freedom should be lost 

 by any direct action of government upon matters not strictly 

 required by the commonwealth. No censorships of the press are 

 needed : the laurel given from above is a more effectual means of 

 command than any leg-locks which absolutism has devised. And 

 where public opinion presses, as in England, the average best men 

 of thought and art will be the prize-men of their year or decade ; 

 and more could not be expected. Those who are before the age, can 

 wait until their age arrives. 



We must, however, guard against the supposition, that one 

 establishment will have anything to do with the choice of another, 

 or that the clergy of the church will nominate the clergy of 

 literature. On the contrary, all these public organs must spring 

 directly from the head of the commonwealth, or they will not 

 possess their own souls, or be taken as they are found. In the 

 contrariety between the best products of an age, lies often the 

 balance and safety of the state; and the church and literature will 

 never be more mutually corrective than when they meet with the 

 rights of an equal origin around the person of the supreme magis- 

 trate. Hence in treating of the second point, or national educa- 

 tion, we are in nowise tied to the order of the first, or culture ; but 

 we begin our course afresh with existing possibilities. It is as in 

 cultivating an estate, we offer prizes for the best fruits, vegetables 

 and stock ; and by that means, we hope to stimulate all the labors 

 of the various tenants ; but when we come to feed our people, we 

 can only give to each the best that can be had ; and if their 

 stomachs are full of fancies and indigestions, we must take them at 

 their word, and supply them with such food as they desire. The 

 point however is, that the state is bound to give them mental food, 

 and this, by a system, not of coercions, but of encouragements. 

 And if like Hindoo castes, they cannot eat anything that has been 

 touched by those of another sect, this, too, must be respected ; yet 

 not so as to render the main object impossible. The first thing is 

 to make the knowledge so general and public, that no complaint 

 shall arise from the jealous persons — that the waters shall not come 

 through our neighbors' houses, but in pipes down the middle of 



