Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/441



New York.

,—Encouraged by the distinction with which you have been kind enough to favor me, I take the liberty of submitting to your enlightened consideration a few observations upon a subject which will soon be brought before the Senate, and in whose favorable selection not only the United States, but republican principles everywhere, and the civilization of the popular masses are deeply interested. I have heard that the discontinuance of the National Department of Education has been resolved upon, and if the measure is definitely carried, such action will in my judgment produce a deplorable reaction against the growing interest inspired of late by universal education.

For statesmen like yourself, my suggestions would have little value, if I should pretend to propose new plans upon subjects on which North Americans are so far in advance of other nations. But it may be of some use to know the impressions made upon other peoples, and my feelings in this special case would be, as it were, the expression of their common aspirations. I can speak for South America, where twenty or thirty millions of human beings are agitated by a chaos of revolutions, which conduce to nothing, because certain elements of government are wanting, and I have recently visited Europe, where I conversed with eminent men upon the salutary moral influence which the United States are beginning to exercise.

When Europe recovered from its surprise and wonder at the happy issue of the past civil war, and at the triumph of republican institutions,—among all the causes incomprehensible at a distance, which had brought about this result, it discerned one alone clearly, and that was that behind Lincoln, Congress, and Grant, was a people that could read and write.

The Republic now presents itself to those who do not despair of liberty in the world, with the school as the basis of its Constitution. To the political economist, the North American School, which creates the producer, is a sufficient explanation of the prodigious development of wealth; and