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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, % 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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THE 
 
 IDEA AND NECESSITY 
 
 Normal School Training 
 
 ;uo '-' i'i/ZV*, 
 
 REV. Geo. B. Spalding, D. D., 
 
 OF DOVER, N. H. 
 
THE 
 
 IDEA AND NECESSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 NORMAL SCHOOL TRAINING. 
 
 ^]Sr i^LDDRESS 
 
 ..^^ 
 
 EEV. GEO. B. SPALDING, D. D., 
 
 OF DOVEE, N. H. 
 
 Delivered at the Dedication of the J^ormal School Build- 
 ing at Gorham, Maine, Dec. 26, 1878. 
 
 PUBLISHED AT BEQUEST. 
 
 
 PORTLAND : 
 DAILY PRESS JOB PRINTING HOUSE. 
 
 1879. 
 
^ si 
 
 Pc\ 
 
Normal School Training. 
 
 Governor Connor, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :— 
 
 We are met here to-day to inaugurate a new movement in the interests 
 of education. The soil out of which it springs is certainly favorable to 
 its growth. 
 
 The people of Gorham, years before this province became a State, were 
 distinguished for their culture, and for the sacrifices which they made to 
 secure the establishment among them of an advanced institution of 
 learning. It is now just three-quarters of a century since the Gorham 
 Academy was incorporated. It was one of the earliest institutions of its 
 kind in northern I^ew England. For years it did a splendid service in 
 the cause of education, sending forth as from a fountain head influences 
 which were powerfully felt throughout the entire State. I recall with 
 personal gratification the fact that the first Preceptor* of your Academy, 
 and the one who was longest and most closely identified with it, was a 
 native of my own town, and received his education from the teachings of 
 one of my predecessors in office ; and I recall another, the first lady prin- 
 cipal t of your Seminary, whose supreme womanly qualities, whose no- 
 ble culture and earnest christian spirit were your admiration here, and 
 which in her last days so richly blest the community in which I was 
 born. 
 
 The generous spirit of the olden days abides with you still. Then the 
 citizens of Gorham contributed out of their scant resources three thou- 
 sand dollars for the use of the Academy ; and now, by public tax and pri- 
 vate gifts, you have donated the munificent sum of nearly thirty thousand 
 dollars, — presenting it to the people of Maine, in the form of a commo- 
 dious and elegant building, which you have placed upon the choicest 
 spot in all your noble surroundings. 
 
 I cannot conceive of circumstances more auspicious for the great enter- 
 prise which we formally institute to-day. It may well evoke your bright- 
 est anticipations of success, and the good wishes and ardent hopes of 
 every citizen of the State. 
 
 As perhaps helping somewhat towards such a result, I would speak on 
 this occasion of the Idea and the Necessity of the Normal School Woi'k. 
 
 * Kev. Reuben Nason. t Mrs. John Lord. 
 
It seems strange to us that some of the simplest mechanical contriv- 
 ances which we daily use, and without which we do not see how we 
 could live at all — it seems passing strange to us -that so many ages should 
 have gone by before their discovery or invention.' Six thousand years of 
 human observation of the expansive power of heated water, and yet with 
 never one thought of its immeasurable utility in the way of subserving 
 men's most common wants. The great ark built, the Tower of Babel 
 reared, the enormous pyramids lifted into the air, the mighty aqueducts 
 and roads of the Koman Empire constructed, and yet the busy workers 
 never bethinking themselves of that simplest, most natural of all imple- 
 ments, without which we of to-day would not know how to build a rail- 
 road, or even transport a load of bricks across our yard. It belonged to 
 the genius of Leonardo, living in the sixteenth century of our era, to 
 think out and construct a wheelbarrow ! 
 
 It seems equally strange to us that so long a period of mental activity 
 should have elapsed, — that so many methods and systems of education 
 should have been devised, that the great universities and schools of 
 Europe should have been so long in operation. — before it should have 
 dawned upon some man that the most natural of all things, and the most 
 necessary of all things, was a system of special teaching for those who 
 would themselves teach. 
 
 But without a doubt the idea had many times been thought of. Just 
 as a suspicion of the power and possibilities of steam, or the distinct 
 shape of a wheelbarrow, had flashed upon the human mind long before 
 Watt sat by the boiling kettle, or the great artist made his rough sketch 
 of the Irishman's vehicle. 
 
 The truth is, that which makes one man to differ from another, that, 
 too, which accounts for the discoveries which have blest the world ; 
 where many men think, doubt, desire, hope, and even attempt, one comes 
 who pierces through thoughts and things with the power of lightning, 
 and that which is only a hazy notion or a mere theory to others becomes 
 an act to this one ; thought is clothed with words ; words are endued with 
 flesh, and the deed is brought to pass. 
 
 So it came about in 1681 that a French priest. La Salle, struck with 
 the gross ignorance of the common people in his parish at Eheims, saw 
 that, in order to effect anything in the way of educating them, he must 
 first of all begin to train the teachers whom he would put over them to 
 better methods of teaching. With the idea came the act. He instituted a 
 school of training and put himself at the head of it. When once he had 
 gotten his covps of disciplined instructors into the field, the work of edu- 
 cating and elevating his parish went prosperously on. 
 
 Sixteen years later Franke, the eminent German divine and philanthro- 
 pist, opened a similar school in connection with his famous Orphan 
 House at Halle, in which he greatly developed this system of special 
 training. The surprising success which attended it challenged the inter- 
 est of the government, and the liberal support of the mightiest ruler of 
 his age, Frederick the Great, followed. Soon in numerous places of 
 Europe Normal Schools were established, until now they count up nearly 
 a thousand. 
 
I have said that it is a strange thing that this idea of special training 
 for teachers did not sooner get itself instituted in Europe, but a stranger 
 thing than this is that more than a century should go by after its success 
 was so entirely demonstrated there before it gained a foothold here in 
 America. 
 
 In regard to the idea of education A.merica, at the very first^ was far in 
 advance of every part of the world. Even at the beginning, our fathers 
 struck that altogether new, that magnificent idea, universal education. 
 In Europe learning had always been " a thing apart from the condition, 
 the calling, the service and the participation of the great mass of men." 
 It aimed at the training of a privileged class ; it savored of the soil out of 
 which it sprang ; it was a creature of tyranny, and it became almost 
 always the servant of tyranny. It was this intellectual culture which 
 adorned the courts of kings, and enabled the few to maintain an ascen- 
 dency over the fears and weaknesses of the people. 
 
 It was nothing less than an inspiration from heaven that led the 
 founders of our American institutions to see that education, which in the 
 hands of a privileged few had been the instrument of bondage, would 
 become in the hands of the people the instrument of their freedom and 
 elevationi Hence these great men enacted, as one of the earliest of their 
 laws, that " the selectmen of every township shall have a vigilant eye 
 over their brethren and neighbors, and to see that none of them shall 
 suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to endeavor to 
 teach, by themselves or others, their children and apprentices so much 
 learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and 
 obtain a knowledge of the capital laws, upon the penalty of twenty 
 shillings for each and every neglect therein." Five years later it was 
 enacted that " every township, as soon as the Lord had increased it to the 
 number of fifty houses, should appoint one to teach all children to read 
 and write, and that every township of a hundred houses shall set up a 
 grammar school, whose master should be able to instruct youth so far as 
 they may be fitted for the university." 
 
 Whether it was that these founders of a new empire, whose coming- 
 greatness no one dares to limit, believed that education is the chief good, 
 and so in itself is worthy of the government's utmost functions to secure, 
 or believed that education is necessary for the preservation of a free gov- 
 ernment and for the securing of the citizen in his life and liberties, it 
 matters not. This thing is certain, that they were the first people ever 
 existing who held the idea of an education for all, and who by enforced 
 law and taxation sought to secure it for all. This is the fundamental 
 principle which underlies our American institutions. This, even more 
 than our form of government, marks us off from the other people of the 
 earth. 
 
 Now what surprises us is, that a people, which seized this magnificent 
 idea with such strength and clearness, should have been so slow in adopt- 
 ing that method which their keen common sense should have taught 
 them, and which the experiments of the Old World had shown was abso- 
 lutely indispensable for the full development of that idea. The frame- 
 
work which the fathers had set up was admirable, but the machinery 
 within was rude and clumsy, and the product was getting worse and 
 worse as time went on. The truth is, that our fathers of the eighteenth 
 century had troubles of many kinds, which sorely interfered with their 
 religious and educational projects, There were the French and Indian 
 Wars, following each other in quick and almost unending succession, 
 and distracting controversies with false teachers, evil spirits, and arbi- 
 trary governors ; and at last came the great sti'uggle for independence 
 and the war of the revolution with its fearful demoralizations. A recent 
 writer, alluding to this last era, says that " the revolution had a most dis- 
 ,asterous effect on popular education. At the beginning of the present 
 century the school houses were mean and inconvenient; the school 
 apparatus was defective ; the teachers were in many cases ill prepared for 
 their duties; the educational methods were slovenly and antiquated." 
 A few years later large populations, particularly in our cities, were with- 
 out the most common rudiments of education. Thousands and tens of 
 thousands of illiterate immigrants were pouring into the land from every 
 ■ portion of Europe. Even the children of the country districts were being 
 badly taught. 
 
 There were men among us who were filled with alarm at this condition 
 of things. They were stung by the consciousness of having neglected 
 the work which the founders of New England had so nobly begun. 
 They henceforth gave themselves with a tremendous zeal and energy to 
 the development of all the resources which lay hidden in this system of 
 popular education. Foremost among these men I name Eev. Charles 
 Brooks, of Hingham, Mass. He came home from Europe with an earnest 
 determination to introduce into America the Prussian system of Normal 
 Schools. He preached, lectured and wrote upon the subject, grad- 
 ually enlisting for its support some of the ablest men in the country. In 
 1838, just forty years ago, the Legislature of Massachusetts made its first 
 appropriation for Normal Schools. Since then the work of their estab- 
 lishment has gone bravely forward, until now in the diffei'ent States of 
 the Union there are one hundred and forty of these institutions, many of 
 them receiving from the States in which they are located princely endow- 
 ments. New York expends annually upon her Normal Schools, I think, 
 nearly one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. 
 
 And yet how much remains to be done before this most essential prin- 
 ciple in our Educational system shall be fully developed, and be permit- 
 ted to have its full place there. How much information there is yet to be 
 disseminated among the people before they will come into an under- 
 standing of it. How much of hard argument and solemn rebuke there is 
 to be administered before the jealousies and prejudices of educated men 
 shall be allayed and shamed out of them. 
 
 The common idea is that any man or woman who has a knowledge of 
 the subject required to be taught, is abundantly competent to teach that 
 subject. 
 
 The district school ! What is the average committee man's idea of it ; 
 of its necessities ; of the qualification of its master ? For the winter 
 
school what else was needed than that the teacher should be from one of 
 the classes in college, and that he should have grit and muscle enough to 
 hold his own against a score or more of great hulky fellows, whose insur- 
 rectionary spirits were being secretly iired by most of the citizens of the 
 district, who would regard it as a good joke if the master was turned out 
 of doors? If the young man put down the young rebels, and "kept the 
 school out," he filled the popular idea of a good teacher. 1 recall the suc- 
 cessive teachers under whom I came as a boy. I do not think that there 
 was an ignorant man among them, nor one who failed to hold us in 
 due order ; but this I can say of them, teachers in the school, and I might 
 almost add, professors in the college, that there was only one of them all 
 who was truly competent to teach ; only one who knew how to inspire a 
 whole school with his own enthusiasm in study, who knew how to adjust 
 his flexible methods to the needs and capacities of every scholar, until he 
 made a school composed of one part braggarts, and the other part 
 dullards, a company of earnest, happy students. I recall only one 
 such, and him my father bailed out of jail to put him over us, hav- 
 ing wit enough to see that there was some other than an evil genius in 
 the man. That teacher ! His life, his fire in the school room, his kindly 
 look, his frown, his lucid explanations, his illustrations so new and 
 startling to us, his appeals to our individual minds, and adroit drawings 
 forth of capacities within us of whose possession we had never dreamed ; 
 his ways of pricking conceit, his patience with slow, stolid intellects, and 
 the moral elevation he gave us, quickening our sense of justice, making 
 us to despise a lie, compelling us to love him, so that I think we could 
 have died for him ! And yet, the man was a criminal ! Yes. Who cah 
 explain the anomaly? One thing I know, he could teach! 
 v' The supreme mistake which we have all along been committing is in 
 our idea of education. We have looked upon it as mainly, if not only, an 
 imparting to children of certain facts, a stocking of their minds with 
 what we call knowledge as to this and that subject. This being so, all 
 that we have deemed as necessary in the teacher is, that he himself should 
 know what he teaches. The book is made up of facts and rules. The 
 teacher is simply to supplement the book along this line of information. 
 To get the historical data into a child's memory; to lodge the mathemat- 
 ical formula in the child's mind, so that with a sort of mechanical accuracy 
 it can work out under it some problem in arithmetic ; to drill a child to 
 know the difference between a period and a comma, and just how many 
 more it shall count at one than at the other, — this was the old idea of edu- 
 cation, and still, to a very large extent, remains so. To think of the 
 human mind as a living entity, as a thinking, reasoning, judging, imag- 
 ining being, having all possible and necessary powers and faculties with- 
 in itself, and that it is the supreme object of what we call education, to 
 develop and discipline these inner forces ; that even in the facts, in the 
 knowledge we give the human mind, we are after all seeking to train the 
 mind to best assimilate these ; to make them its own, to have power to 
 use them, — such an idea of education is a novelty to most people, to most 
 teachers, or if these last have caught at the better thought, it enters 
 
8 
 
 as no distinct, supreme, all-forming principle into their methods of in- 
 struction. It is this conception of the human mind, not as a thing which 
 must be filled up, not as a pigeon-holed affair, into whose separate com- 
 partments we put our labeled kinds of knowledge ; not this, but as a living 
 principle or rather being, entire in itself, with all-sufficient forces within, 
 which it is ours to develop, direct and discipline, for all the uses of a 
 complete manhood or womanhood; it is -this conception of education 
 that gives any real dignity to it, and which also makes necessary in 
 those who would 'truly educate, a special genius for it, or (for we cannot 
 only now and then have that) a special training for it. How we have 
 degraded this teaching profession, and degraded the children in subject- 
 ing them to it ! Young persons enter it as Thomas Fuller said it was in 
 his day: "as if nothing else were required to set themselves up in it but 
 a rod or a ferule ; and others enter it as refuge from present want, or as a 
 passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune 
 till they can provide a new one." 
 
 No man would subject his fine blooded colts to any such awkward 
 hands. He knows that the tremendous rate of speed, which the last few 
 years have shown, is largely attributable to that superb skill which the 
 trainer has exercised in developing the before unknown powers of his 
 horse. And this skill of the driver is the fine result of his own patient 
 training, his special apprenticeship in his special business. No man, 
 picked up at random, because of his strength of muscle and loudness of 
 voice, could drive a Earns around the course with a speed that makes time 
 seem to lag. It requires a man to do that whose eye has been taught, 
 whose touch has become delicate, whose head has been steadied, whose 
 entire being has been brought to such a pitch of controlled sympathy that 
 it beats in rhythmic movement with the flying racer. Shall we do less for 
 our children than we do for our horses ? This special and prolonged 
 training we demand of men in all the other professions. What is the 
 Minister's Theological Seminary, but a Normal School to teach him how 
 best to preach? What is the Lawyer's University, but his Normal School 
 to train him in the understanding of the law, and the wise conduct of 
 his case? What is the Doctor's Medical School, except a Normal School 
 to discipline him into a skillful practitioner in his healing art ? And the 
 engineer and chemist and the painter each has his Normal School, where 
 he is carefully trained for the profession of his life. Even the soldier has 
 his Normal School, where by special discipline he is made a proficient in 
 the science of military affairs. How sore a lesson was taught us in the 
 great war ; when we put our armies under the control of intelligent men, 
 of patriotic men, but untaught as military leaders ? How at last, and 
 indeed, all the way through, we had to look to the graduates of West 
 Point, the soldier's Normal School, for men with heads large enough to 
 take in the movement of armies a thousand miles apart, and control the 
 battle march of a hundred thousand men over twenty miles of territory, 
 bringing them to bear in due time and order upon the exposed front or 
 detached wing of the opposing host. No man was ever born who could 
 leap hap-hazard into such grand leadership as that. No matter who the 
 
9 
 
 genius was, Frederick, Napoleon, Wellington, or our own Grant, he 
 had to be specially trained for such a splendid success. 
 
 Let us then apply the same common sense to this, far graver, mat- 
 ter of training those who are to educate oar children, so that the teacher 
 may as thoroughly understand the nature of the child as the driver 
 understands his horse, and maybe equally skilled with him in developing 
 its latent capabilities. Let us no longer put raw workmen to this 
 mightiest and most delicate of all tasks, of shaping an immortal mind, 
 and stamping upon it its character and destiny for time and eternity. 
 What grand natures, equal to any success, capable for any service to 
 which God and man could call them, have been stunted and crippled, put 
 to most serious disadvantage in the great race for life, through the early 
 shapes given to them by ignorant or incompetent teachers, who have had 
 no conscience in the work, or no wit wherewith to perceive the various 
 wants and capabilities of their scholars, and without judgment enough to 
 adjust themselves and their methods in accordance with these. Probably 
 there is no one among us here to-day who does not bear some mark, 
 placed upon him by some teacher, which has more or less marred his 
 character, and lessened his chances for happiness and usefulness in the 
 great struggle of life. 
 
 Now the common people, the men and women whose open ballots or 
 silent votes settle all these matters of public moment, the common people, 
 have only to understand this matter. They would rise up in sternest 
 denunciation of all this shiftless, wasteful, destructive method which has 
 so long been pursued, and demand, as a sacred right which belonged to 
 them as citizens of the State, as tax payers, as supporters of the common 
 schools, that henceforth the children, their own and their neighbors', 
 shall be educated by those who in character and by special training are 
 only competent for such a work. Let them once fairly see the thing, and 
 whatever protests and grumbling they make against excessive taxation, 
 it will not be the tax levied for the support of Normal Schools that they 
 will dare to abate. 
 
 But there is opposition to Normal Schools as State institutions from 
 another quarter, from men of education. Such men for the most part 
 are those who are connected with other institutions of learning, which 
 have sprung up and are sustained without State aid. They protest as 
 though it were something partial and unjust that the people should be 
 taxed for the maintenance of Normal Schools while Academies and 
 Colleges are left to themselves. 
 
 But the answer to this is easy. Academies and Colleges, all of these 
 schools of higher learning, important as they are, do not stand in the 
 same relation to the State and to the citizen as do the common schools. 
 We could conceive of a republic within whose teri'itory was no college 
 nor seminary, — I do not think it would be the best type of a republic — 
 but we could not conceive of a free State existing at all without common 
 schools. There is no need of my fortifying this point, for it is in no dan- 
 ger of attack from any true Amei-ican citizen. The foundations of our 
 free institutions were laid upon the common school system, and where 
 
10 
 
 that system has prevailed there has beeu no strain nor crack in that part 
 of the great structure. Now the point is, that this work of special train- 
 ing of teachers for our common schools is a part of our common school 
 system. It is now, in view of the new elements which have been brought 
 into the question, in view of the vast tides of immigration which have 
 set in upon us, and the full powers of citizenship with which we have 
 equipped all classes among us ; — this work of special training of teachers 
 for our common school is now a most vital part in our system of po]»ular 
 education. The common school finds all its value to the State in the fact 
 that it is a good common school. What we need is not a new system of 
 popular instruction, but only that the system itself should be worked 
 with force and efficiency. What is a school without a teacher, without 
 a competent teacher? To make competent teachers, then, is just as 
 much a part of the work of the State, its neccesary work, as to build 
 a school house. This is the reason why the States are rapidly multiply- 
 ing and generously maintaining these schools for special training It is 
 that they may make the system of education upon which they them- 
 selves stand worth anything: that it may yield the fruit for which it was 
 planted. 
 
 Now this fact takes the Normal School outside the list of other institu- 
 tions of learning like the Academy, the Seminary, the College. The Nor- 
 mal School is an integral part of the common school system. It belongs 
 to the State to support the one just as much as it belongs to it to support 
 the other. 
 
 Why, look at it from an economic way: In these United States there 
 are enrolled in the public schools 9,000,000. of scholars. The number of 
 teachers is 231,000. The amount expended each year upon this vast 
 scheme is upwards of $82,000,000. 
 
 Look at your own State of Maine. The whole number of scholars in 
 your common schools last year was 1.55,150. Your expenses for maintain- 
 ing these schools for each year is nearly a million of dollars. Is there 
 not here an argument which comes close home, to the pocket as well as 
 the head, in favor of a system which best secures a wise, economical use 
 of all this vast money and these vast energies? Look at another fact. I 
 ihink that the figures will show that seven-eighths of the children of this 
 State cease to be educated after they reach fifteen years of age. That is 
 to say, these common schools do all that is done for the education of 
 seven out of every eight of your children. Ought not the education 
 which thus comes to so many in the common schools, and which is 
 restricted to so few years in life, ought it not to be as thorough as possi- 
 ble ? These children, too, for the most part, come under the tutorage of 
 young women. With all the excellence which characterizes this class, no 
 one can fail to see that in not a few ways they need to be specially 
 trained for this work of teaching before they can master with any strong 
 hold, or stimulate into any large growth, the minds, of the boys at least, 
 who come under their administration. 
 
 These are facts which should be thoroughly understood by our edu- 
 cate! men. In their ardent love of higher learning, in the intense loyalty 
 
11 
 
 to the great institutions which gave to them fortune and fame,— or bet- 
 ter still, the solid satisfactions of a broad culture, — let them not forget 
 that humble institution which the fathers laid on Plymouth soil, out of 
 which the nation itself sprang; which saved the nation and liberty in its 
 hour of sorest peril; which is to be the nation's glory and security 
 thi'ough all its future, the common school where American citizens are 
 educated. 
 
 And we of New England need to cherish this with a special pride and 
 fondness, not only for what it has been, but for what it must be to us. 
 
 It is said that New England has reached and even passed the summit 
 of its power and influence. But where are the signs of it? 
 
 It is not to be affirmed that New England character is dying out, or 
 that it is losing any of its finest qualities. The old stock was too vigor- 
 ous for that. It has transmitted its best self through all these genera- 
 tions, and yet the old enterprise, the old energy, the old hopefulness, the 
 old faith in God, in man, in the future, remain in their unimpaired integ- 
 rity among the children. It will not be affirmed that our colleges are 
 losing anything of their characteristic culture and fulness of knowledge, 
 or that they are less popular and influential, or are less attended. The 
 facts are all the other way. Harvard and Tale and Dartmouth and 
 Bowdoin, axe sacred places to x'i.raerican scholars, and will be so long as 
 American scholarship exists. But it is not these spiritual elements and 
 forces which these wise prognosticators of our doom have in mind. They 
 are thinking of material things. They are thinking of breadth of terri- 
 tory, of vastness of population, of natural advantages and resources, and 
 not at all of these viewless qualities of brain and energy and inventive 
 genius and spiritual faith and courage, which give character to a man or 
 a people, and enable them, as in the New England of the past, to make a 
 sparse population, a rocky soil and a narrow territory to yield the ele- 
 ments even of a material greatness and prosperity. Men travel through 
 the vast Western world and, gazing upon its mighty reaches of land, its 
 immense fruitfulness, and its teeming cities, come back to us and every- 
 thing seems small to them here. Men go and sit a while in the halls of 
 Congress, and behold how meagre a proportion makes up the representa- 
 tion of New England. Once, they say, it was very different. Then New 
 England carried her measures and impressed her influence by the num- 
 ber of her ballots. Now she is completely overshadowed by the great 
 majority from the West and South. It is this numerical greatness, this 
 material bulk which first catches the eye, and too often impresses the 
 mind of the spectator. 
 
 Tliei-e is something in all this, but it carries very much less weight than 
 many will admit. 
 
 Some one asked a distinguished German why God had made so many 
 Chinamen and so few Germans. His answer was, " it isn't quantity that 
 God is after but quality." So it is; it isn't numbers, but brains that 
 rule the world. It is character, moral stamina, that outweighs all the 
 material bulk of the earth and the universe. The people that has most 
 impressed itself upon the religious thought and destiny of the human 
 
12 
 
 race were few in number. They were shut into a very diminutive terri- 
 tory, and yet Palestine became the central land of the world, and gave us 
 a vision which shines with an unspent luster upon the best civilizations 
 of this nineteenth century, Greece was a little kingdom lying on the 
 fringe of Europe, but the grace of its culture and the fineness of its 
 thought are among the living forces of the present. Up in the north of 
 Europe, half submei'ged by the sea, a mere dot of land on the map of the 
 earth's surface, lived a people who swept the ocean with her guns, and 
 saved Protestant liberty from the deadly clutch of spiritual and civil ab- 
 solutism. And over to the extreme west of Europe lies a little island. It 
 is now fourteen hundred years since the Roman legions sailed away from 
 it, leaving it to its fate. What a history has England had. Is she dead 
 yet? Is she dying to-day ? I trow not. As Brownson once finely said, 
 " There is not a wrinkle on her brow." Whence comes it that England 
 has led Europe and leads the world to-day ? Not because of material bulk, 
 nor territorial demensions, nor countless population, but it comes of a 
 moral stamina unequaled in Europe. There is the hiding of her power, 
 
 New England repeats the lesson of the past. Her character, her finer 
 thought, her more spiritual qualities, will give her the supremacy. The 
 time has been when, although overwhelmingly outvoted, she carried the 
 day, by her weight of argument, by her earnest convictions, by her pro- 
 phetic inspirations, by her higher patriotism, her loftier courage, by her 
 unquenchable love of the truth and her sublime eagerness to die for it. 
 New England policy vanished ! New England measures and idens things 
 of the past ! Not so. Not so. When the great crises come ; when prin- 
 ciples which touch the human conscience or involve the nation's honor 
 or liberty are in peril, it will be New England sentiment, it will be New 
 England men in Congress, that will shape the national policy and save the 
 country from infamy and ruin. 
 
 I have no fears for New England. She was born of spiritual ideas. She 
 has always believed in the supremacy of ideas. This is her glory and her 
 security. Let her go straight onward, believing in God. Let her address 
 herself to her material interests with her native genius and energy, and yet 
 keep her face fronted to the heavens, holding still in the fathers' faith in 
 prayer, in the Bible, in the school house, and her future view will be as 
 her past has been, replete with material success and national inflence, 
 and spiritual victory. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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