Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/216

212 man, with half an eye, can see how we suffer continually in politics for lack of education among the people. Some nations are priest-ridden, some king-ridden, Rome ridden of nobles; America in ridden by politicians, a heavy burden for a foolish neck.

Our industrial interests demand the game education. The industrial prosperity of the North, our lands yearly enriching, while they bear their annual crop; our rail-roads, mills, and machines, the harness with which we tackle the elements,—for we domesticate lire and water, yes, the very lightning of heaven—all these are but material results of the intelligence of the people. Our political succors, and our industrial prosperity, both come from the pains taken with the education of the people. Halve this education, and you take away three-fourths of our political welfare, three-fourths of our industrial prosperity; double this education, you greaten the political welfare of the people, you increase their industrial success fourfold. Yes, more than that, for the results of education increase by a ratio of much higher powers.

It seems strange that so few of the great men in politics have cared much for the education of the people ; only one of those, now prominent before the North, is intimately connected with it. He, at great personal sacrifice of money, of comfort, of health, even of respectability, became superintendent of the common schools of Massachusetts, a place whence we could ill spare him, to take the place of the famous man he succeeds. Few of the prominent scholars of the land interest themselves in the public education of the people. The men of superior culture think the common school beneath their notice; but it is the mother of them all.

None of the States of the North has ever given this matter the attention it demands. When we legislate about public education, this is the question before us:—Shall we give our posterity the greatest blessing that one generation can bestow upon another? Shall we give them a personal power which will create wealth in every form, multiply ships, and roads of earth, or of iron; subdue the forest, till the field, chain the rivers, hold the winds as its vassals, bind with an iron yoke the fire and water, and catch and tame the lightning of God? Shall we give