Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/184



is the developing and furnishing of the faculties of man. To educate the people is one of the functions of the State. It is generally allowed in the free States of America, that the community owes each child born into it a chance for education, intellectual, moral, and religious. Hence the child has a just and recognised claim on the community for the means of this education, which is to be afforded him, not as a charity, but as a right. The fact indicates the progress mankind has made in not many years. Once the State only took charge of the military education of the people; not at all of their intellectual, moral, or religious culture. They received their military discipline, not for the special and personal advantage, of the individuals, Thomas and Oliver, but for the benefit of the State. They received it, not because they were men claiming it in virtue of their manhood, but as subjects of the State, because their military training was needful for the State, or for its rulers who took the name thereof. Then the only culture which the community took public pains to bestow on its members, was training them to destroy. The few, destined to command, learned the science of destruction, and the kindred science of defence; the many, doomed to obey, learned only the art to destroy, and the kindred art of defence.