SCHOOL AND STATE. 269- 



Valjean, who for seventeen years toiled as a galley slave for stealing one loaf of 

 bread, and you will behold the demons which the State manufactures every day. 

 Can you wonder that the convict goes forth with a hell in his heart, to prey upon 

 his fellow ? Wipe out forever the miserable doctrines that they should be self- 

 sustaining, and tax the pure in heart that those who have committed the crimes 

 may be shown the way of life, and inaugurate more of the reign of love. 



Redeem the stage. Let virtue and peace beware when the populace applaud 

 the scandals of life when rehearsed before the glare of the footlights. But the 

 play has its audience no less than the pulpit. It may be made to touch the 

 heart and generate noble aspirations when all else fails. Keep its teachings pure. 

 Away with the tawdry representations of the hour when the terrible night-rider 

 and the debauche of society are paraded before the public mind. Let character 

 be the burden of the story recited, and orchestra, dress and scenery be but ex- 

 quisite settings in which to present an ideal life. 



Again, if we would have the ballot the potential factor in American politics, 

 let the press above all other means of our popular- education, banish from its 

 columns the baneful evil of party spirit. Principles are the only vitalities which 

 may organize men into parties. With the telegraph and the railroad, the press 

 has become a household treasure, and the home and family are banned or blessed 

 as its tone is pure and wise, or slanderous and unpolitic. Its freedom should not 

 be compassed alone by the will of man, but rather by the will of the State. 



This is the most " solemn experiment" in human government the world has 

 ever witnessed. If there are abuses and neglects in government about us now, 

 we should stay the tide while yet we may. If ignorance is an evil which forms a 

 standing menace to good government, then look well to our schools and all the 

 ennobling influences of our civilization. It is easier to tear down than to build 

 up. A breath of tyranny, the revolution of a single day, the proscription of a 

 single prerogative, may bear us swiftly to anarchy and ruin. The past remains 

 unalterable. It is a "lighthouse in the great sea of time" and no act of ours 

 can dim the lustre of a single star in the galaxy of the revolutionary heroism. 

 But other generations will judge our work. We must account to the future for 

 the " blessings which have been transmitted to us." Let us not " quench the 

 light which is rising upon the world. Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of 

 her prisoned, dying Demosthenes; and Rome pleads with us in the mute per- 

 suasion of her mangled TuUy." But if an enhghtened people shall preserve the 

 pure principles of our forefathers as a princely heritage to those of another day, 

 what imagination can picture the ineffable glory that may surround the human 

 mind in the century to come. To what liberation of soul, to what surpassing 

 civilization, to what peace of government shall the world bow down. If king 

 there be, his throne will tremble and the humblest peasant in far off Siberian waste 

 will feel the thrill of life run through his soul, and if he shall but make the school 

 and the press the arbiters of our destiny, perhaps soon will be realized Jo?quin 

 Miller's wondrous prophecy of the West : " The sea of seas shall rave and knock 



