194 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
and ihe pationage oftlje pu,bUc guardians, then 
does this na^ro.w-joa^adeci, selfish policy strike 
down tire confidence of virtue, invert the laws 
of social order and surrender morality to the 
winds and waves, to sink or swim, as Heaven or 
chance may decree. The st stem of mutual de- 
pendencies which pervades society and links 
man to man by reciprocal obligations, while it 
rebukes tne self-love which shuts a man within 
himselfand insulates him from all around, yet 
provides for this strong instinct of our nature by 
the pleasurable emotions consequent upon libe- 
ral sentiments and philanthropic enterprise. 
They who have but one fixed principle, that of 
securing their own secular interest.s, wfil be ru- 
ined by their success, and are dtxtmed to the 
cheerless desolation of a spirit without sensi- 
bilities and oi age without friends. And when 
whole communities yield to the same ignoble 
impulses and look upon c'ccay without sympa- 
thy, or care while their own interests are provi- 
ded for, and congratulate themselves upon their 
pre-eminence in all that ennobles our common 
nature without the inclination to diffuse, then 
must patriotism mourn the degeneracy of her 
ehiicren, ap,d religion weep the banishment of 
her principles. Qh 1 for a generous, expansive, 
public spirit to bear us away irom our sel- 
fish centre into the sympathies and activi- 
ties ot a universal charity ! Oh ! for an en- 
lightened. efiective public opinion with trumpet- 
voice to rally the recreant energies of a dormant 
people, and muster them in proud array for the 
work of social regeneration and the redemption 
of a maltreated land. 
Whatever tends to promote the wealth — elicit 
the enterprise, or advance the moral and intel- 
lectual condition of the State, ought to enlist 
the feelings and the energies of every man 
worthy to be called a citizen. 1 like not that 
aaeenng philosophy which seeks to extinguish 
pur partialities for our own country by the 
claims of citizenship wide as the world; and 
doubt that philanthrophy which vapours about 
the remote, while it fails to glow with an inten- 
sity proportioned to the proximity of its objects. 
Everything which imparts fertility lo. the soil, 
permanency to the population, exultation to the 
sentiments, fame to the literature, and purity to 
the moials of the State, ought to levy a contri- 
bution upon the praise — the confidence — the 
co-operation of every man who desires the pro- 
tection of the laws, or the reputation of his fa- 
mily. B;Ut the policy fn agriculture has been 
to exhaust and abandon — in education tn neg- 
lect and depreciate — in literature to enter into 
other men’s labors. In the absence of positive 
statutes interdicting the settlement of strangers 
or compelling the native citizens to remove, or 
some other extraordinary oppression — if inge- 
nuity had been racked lo find ways and means 
to retard the ratio of population, more efiiea- 
cious plans could not have been devised than 
those which have prevailed. Emigration from 
east to west, as new territory was acquired, and 
then a change of location to A labama, orlothe 
valley of the Mississippi, as thriftless husband- 
ry accomplished its work of exhaustion on this 
side the Chattahoochee, has been the order of 
the day. The hazardous investment in bubble 
speculations — the idolatrous devotion to money- 
making — the prostration of every energy — the 
sacrifice of feeling — hope— all at the shrine of 
covetousness (the American Baal) has put a 
most degrading mockery upon all that prompts 
to improvement, unless it enrich the divinity of 
our senseless adoration. The local affections 
have scarcely had a name, much less a habita- 
tion. Houseless wanderers, doomed to dwell 
upon the wing without a heart to bid them wel- 
conae or a roof-tree to give them shelter. The 
homestead has been as the teat of the Ishmaelite 
— a lodge for a night, and the occupants way- 
farers on pilgrimage to an Eldorado long sought 
but never found. Architecture (I degrade the 
word by the connection) of the rudest model has 
been the highest effort of the farmer, and the flo- 
ral embellishments on which taste would smile, 
have been derided as the play-things of girlhood, 
and the cotton blo^om the only floweij' in na- 
ture’s garden worth a wise man’s regard. The 
want of every thing like permanency — the shift- 
ing migratory character of the people has fore- 
stalled progress in every department, and trans- 
ferred beyond our limits much ot the genius, 
capital and enterprise, to which our loved land 
was richly entitled, and for the operation and 
success of which there was atrsplitude of range 
and constancy ot demand. But with the worst 
system of husbandry that ever cursed the ground 
— a spirit ot activity that eschewed taste, con- 
venience, comfort, torthesakeof ireasure,sought 
and hoarded — preliminary to more rapid accu- 
mulation in another region — the home-bred 
feelings that endear the place of birth and hal- 
low the sepulchres of the dead, resigned lo the 
Indian tribes as unfit to trammel the genius of 
civilization — what could we expect but hills of 
flaming clay, fields of dwarfish pines thickly 
clustered as if to hide the poverty of their origin, 
and a people deaf and dead to ail but the charms 
of a new country of deeper soil and more abun- 
dant gain I It has been too much the custom 
to charge everything which embarrasses our 
exertions or defeats our plans to the govern- 
ment, as if no malign influences could ari.se 
from any othersourcein a free country. What- 
ever may have been the defects of national or 
state legislation (and on this subject I neither 
affirm or deny) nothing but the most stupendous 
fraud of governmental policy, or oppression the 
most despotic, could have produced the exhaus- 
tion of soil that everywhere strikes the travel- 
ler’s eye, unless there had been some radical 
wrong in the habits of the people. The evil 
under which the land groans is social, conven- 
tional — part and parcel of the domestic economy 
of the inhabitants. The haste to be riebylike the 
first transgression, has not only emailed moral 
deterioration, but with withbaiefal breath, mil- 
dewed the ground, barrenness its foot print and 
decay the memento of its travel. 
Nothing butdownright perversion or wilful a- 
buse of talent could have produced the utter po- 
verty of literature which marks our history. No- 
thing but niggard or partisan policy could have 
' made education so tardy in its progress or so su- 
perficial in its effects. But while the cultivation 
ofthe soil, and the support of literature, to the 
^ mode and extent, are raainly dapendent upon 
the will of the people, irrespective oi the legisla- 
tion of the country, it has been the practice of 
all enlightened goverments to foster by munifi- 
cent enactments the means and agencies of ge- 
, neral informatiop. I speak not now of colle- 
giate education so maah §s of common school 
instruction. With ample means to execute, 
and brilliant examples in other States to guide, 
we have had a piebald heterogeneous system (it 
so dignified an appellation may be used to de- 
signate it) barren of profit and fruitful only of 
waste and wrong. The Poor School Fund has 
■ been the store on which the lounging ignora- 
m/mes who aspired to be gentlemen, without the 
industry to acquire the title or the knowledge to 
sustain the character, have been permitted to 
draw, by the license of careless commissioners, 
while the instruction given has been the mock- 
ery of legislative beneficence and a remorseless 
imposition upon the confiding poor. Without 
permanent schools, or school-houses ; forced to 
rely upon voluntary associations for the choice 
, of a site and the means to build ; the prime mo- 
' vers unpaid, uninterested; the stirring of public 
spirit scarcely an annual visitation ; without 
specific responsibility to the public in any of 
their arrangements—nothing but imbecility, 
mistake and prodigality ccnld have been ex- 
pected. It is matter of rejoicing, afler long 
years of misrule and defalcation, that the last 
Legislature began the work of reform. Honor- 
ed be the man who had the honesty to expose 
the iniquitous abuse of the public charity — the 
moral courage to propose taxation for the exi- 
gency of the case, and the wisdom to devise a 
plan of appropriation subject to the control of 
responsible men. If there is sufficient love of 
general knowledge to estimate the plan, or vi- 
tality enough in the patriotism ofthe people to 
apply it, his name shall stand a land-mark on 
the coast of time, and his monument shall be 
his country’s blessing. 
Various causes have combined to re- 
tard ihe progress of higher education. The 
ignorant have laughed lo scorn the idea that the 
knowledge of the languages and of science was 
a necessary, or even important, qualification 
fi r the duties of a citizen in a free country. 
Nay, many affirm that anything beyond ele-i 
menlary instruction disqualifies for the more 
common avocations ol life ; and as the party poli- 
cy ol the country has given to the most igno- 
rant the balance ol power, the preponderating 
influence, they have been too formidable to be 
assailed in their prejudices, and any attempt at 
illumination was a covert insult to the dignity 
of the people and an aristocratic aggression up- 
on the rights ofthe yeomanry. Legal equality 
has been made to subserve all the purposes of 
social merit, and mental elevation and licen- 
tious notions of liberty and independence have 
been allowed to suppress the noblest efforts and 
defeat the highest instincts of society. Instead 
of making the laws and regulations ofthe land, 
by enlightened legislation and well-directed so-’ 
cial influence, the exponents and the guides of 
popular opinion; popular opinion — mutable, 
capricious,benighted — has been suffered through 
a vile subserviency to become a paramount 
power; a kind of numerical sovereignty, to 
whose potent, but barbarian will, all must do 
; obeisance. No merely political interests can 
ever authenticate or give legitimacy to those 
prejudices which constitute the body-guard ot 
ignorance, and the ready instruments of oppo- 
sition to moral reform and intelketual eleva- 
tioB. It is the law of the moral world that in- 
telligence shall govern, and the surrender of its 
heaven-invested rights can never be justified by 
the paltry triumphs that sometimes reward itS: 
degradation. To tremble in the presence ©f po- 
pular clamor, or fly from opposition, is unwor- 
thy its high ebaraeter; but logo over to the 
enemy, is treason against liberty and order. 
Brute force may overwhelm it for a season, and 
its irregular motions and natural insubordina,- 
cy defy the authority of reason and the validity- 
of law, but the moral courage sustained by 
. eight and a patriotic respect to the general good,, 
that falters not in the assertion of its suprema- 
cy, will be sure to gather energy from the con- 
flict and make defeat itself yield the fruits of 
victory. The cause of education needs bold 
advocacy in the halls of legislation, by the press; 
and through all the means of access to the pipJth 
li,c mind. If oar prominent men would array 
' themseives upon the subject — defy the cabals 
of demagogueism — the perversion of sinister 
intrigues — though they might suffer a tempo- 
rary eclipse of popularity, yet lime would ren- 
.. der praise with usury- The tyro politicians, 
' who now cater to the vulgar and the base, and 
like the Arabs of the desert, rush from their ob- 
scurity to repel the invasion of light and main-*, 
tain their lawless rule — rebuked and foiled 
would retire — leaving wisdom to choose her 
: way and patriotism to direct her journey. 
The G003 have been deterred from patroaL 
zing institutions of learning because of the 
temptations to vice too often clustered about^ 
them, and of the facilities for evil that abounded 
among the youth collected by them. The ap- 
^ prehended deterioratioa of principle and cha- 
racter, whether justified by the facts or not, was 
sufficient to stifle the risings of parental ambi- 
tion, and to doom the boy to bear the disabilities 
of his sire. 1 am inclined to think that reli- 
gious fears and an assumed sepse of responsi- 
bility have been credited with acts of s?lf-denial 
that ought rather to have been attributed to a 
secular policy, cautious of expenditure and 
glad of an apology to save. With depreciated 
views of learning and an exaggerated estimate 
of “ the main chance,” it is not difficult to per- 
ceive how a mind not overwise may be duped 
by the plausibilities of a mode of reasoning 
which seems to enthrone Christianity as the pre- 
siding guardian ot every family movement. If 
religion gained what education lost by this ill- 
judging timidity, then should the tongue of re- 
