LANCASTER COUNTY. 437 



humblest oflicer created by a Borough charter, the necessity of 

 having that same people educated, will not for a moment be 

 questioned. For, as they are enlightened or unenlightened, so 

 will their government be elevated in character, or depressed 

 in a corresponding degree. Called upon as they are, to the 

 frequent exercise of the elective franchise, and thus necessarily 

 to judge of men and measures, their course of action must be 

 determined, either by each man's own personal examination 

 into the character of the one, and a careful investigation into 

 the propriety or expediency of the other, or else it must be 

 suggested and fixed by the advice and opinions of others. And 

 what a prolific source of abuse is this. It is seldom indeed 

 that such advice is honest, for the most part it is the gratuitous 

 offering of interested men. How shall those whose minds are 

 obscured by the clouds of ignorance, be capable of discrimina- 

 ting between the correctness and incorrectness of questions 

 of public policy 1 How shall they judge between the patriot 

 and the ambitous, self-aggrandizing demagogue"? Are they 

 competent to arrive at a proper decision of the various compli- 

 cated questions, necessarily arising for their determination, and 

 by a reference to which, their choice is to be regulated in the 

 selection of officers and representatives'! Let the people be 

 educated, and thus each individual will be rightly impressed 

 with the important truth, that his ou'n interests are identified 

 with those of the State. For no government is so free as that 

 which is upheld by the affections of the people, and no com- 

 munity so happy as that in which the youth, by proper educa- 

 tion, are disciplined to the exercise of all those moral virtues 

 that ennoble human nature. 



So thought and so acted, almost all of the early settlers of 

 nearly every state in the Union. Although Colonists it is true, 

 and perhaps entertaining not even the most remote idea of a 

 separate existence, at any period of time, as a nation, they 

 were in their Colonial government, if not essentially, at least 

 partially Democratic. Returning by a popular vote, their own 

 Representatives, and — with the exception of their Governors — 

 the greater part of all their prominent officers, they felt the 

 necessity of so enlightening this first great power, that at a 

 Yery early day, schools and institutions of learning were estab- 

 lished and founded by voluntary contributions among them. — 



37* 



