152 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT. [CHAP. XL 



could more easily be induced to stay until the age of sixteen. 

 Young men, it is said, would hate nothing so much as to find 

 themselves inferior in education to the women of their own age 

 and station. 



Of late years the improvement of the schools has been so 

 rapid, that objects which were thought Utopian even when 

 Channing began his career, have been realized ; and the more 

 sanguine spirits, among whom Mr. Horace Mann, Secretary of 

 the Public Board of Education, stands pre-eminent, continue to 

 set before the eyes of the public an ideal standard so much more 

 elevated, as to make all that has hitherto been accomplished 

 appear as nothing. The taxes self-imposed by the people for 

 educational purposes are still annually on the increase, and the 

 beneficial effects of the system are very perceptible. In all the 

 large towns Lyceums have been established, where courses of 

 lectures are given every winter, and the qualifications of the 

 teachers who deliver them are much higher than formerly. Both 

 the intellectual and social feelings of every class are cultivated 

 by these evening meetings, and it is acknowledged that with the 

 increased taste for reading, cherished by such instruction, habits 

 of greater temperance and order, and higher ideas of comfort, 

 have steadily kept pace. 



Eight years ago (1838) Channing observed that &quot;millions, 

 wearied by their day s work, have been chained to the pages of 

 Walter Scott, and have owed some bright evening hours and 

 balmier sleep to his magical creations ;&quot; and he pointed out how 

 many of the laboring classes took delight in history and biogra 

 phy, descriptions of nature, in travels and in poetry, as well as 

 graver works. In his Franklin Lecture, addressed, in 1838, to 

 a large body of mechanics and men earning their livelihood &quot; by 

 manual labor,&quot; he says, &quot; Books are the true levelers, giving to 

 all who will faithfully use them the society and spiritual pres 

 ence of the best and greatest of our race ; so that an individual 

 may be excluded from what is called good society, and yet not 

 pine for want of intellectual companionship.&quot;* 



When I asked how it happened that in so populous and rich 

 * Channing, vol. ii. p. 378. 



