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iu L'V& 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered February 6th, 1885, 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. J. L. M. CURRY, 
 
 GENERAL AGENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND, 
 
 IN RESPONSE TO AN INVITATION EXTENDED IN A JOINT RESOLUTION OF THE 
 SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF ALABAMA. 
 
 REPORTED STENOGRAPHICALLY BY E. WORKMAN. 
 
 MONTGOMERY, ALA. : 
 
 BARRETT & CO., STATE PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
 1885. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered February 6th, 1885, 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. J. L. M. CURRY, 
 
 GENERAL AGENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND, 
 
 IN RESPONSE TO AN INVITATION EXTENDED IN A JOINT RESOLUTION OF THE 
 SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF ALABAMA. 
 
 
 REPORTED STENOGRAPHICALLY BY E. WORKMAN. 
 
 MONTGOMERY, ALA.: 
 
 BARRETT & CO., STATE PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
 
 1885. 
 

 •A 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 In introducing Dr. Curry, Governor O'Neal said : 
 
 Senators, Representatives and Fellow Citizens : I have been 
 requested to introduce to you a distinguished gentleman, 
 eminent for his talents and for his virtues, and who has a 
 national reputation. Formerly a distinguished citizen of 
 the State of Alabama, he has rendered great service to his 
 State in the General Assembly, and in the Congress of the 
 United States. It affords me pleasure to introduce to you 
 the Hon. J. L. M. Curry. 
 
 Dr. Curry said : 
 
 Governor, Senators, Representatives, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 Loving as I do the State of Alabama with all the intensity 
 of an earnest nature, devoting as I do all the energies of my 
 being to the cause of the education of the mases of both 
 races, I do not ascribe the honor of this invitation to any- 
 thing personal to myself but to the fact that I am the agent 
 of the Peabody Education Fund— -the most magnificent gift 
 ever made by a single person in the interest of humanity. 
 It was not, mark you, made to his own section, exultant in 
 victory, but to a people smitten, peeled, subjugated, over 
 whose fair and fertile fields rolled a tide, the reflection of 
 the inky blackness of which darkened the heavens. It was 
 the first voice of cheer and hope that came to the South 
 while her heart quivered in speechless agony and was in aid 
 of those who had suffered most from the ravages of a fratri- 
 cidal war. The Southern States, in testimony of their 
 gratitude, should unitedly erect, in the hall of the nation's 
 
glory in Washington, a statue of marble or bronze to their 
 illustrious benefactor. 
 
 A State government is a representative Republic. A 
 representative is chosen for his patriotism, fidelity, wisdom 
 and integrity. It surely is a high honor to have the welfare 
 and liberties of a people committed to one's hands. To the 
 discharge of these high duties he should bring a clear head 
 and an honest heart — a mind well stored by diligent and 
 painstaking study, a judgment free from prejudice, and a 
 courage and conscientiousness which bribes, intimidation, 
 selfishness, or fear of popular displeasure can not shake. 
 He reflects the conscience, the high resolve, the intelligent 
 patriotism, or the passions and hates of his constituency. 
 He is a lawmaker. Law is the expression of sovereignty. 
 Behind law, which should be the embodiment of justice and 
 right, sits enthroned for its enforcement the power, the 
 majesty, of the commonwealth. I believe with Sir James 
 Mackintosh that "there can be no scheme or measure so 
 beneficial to the State as the mere existence of men who 
 would not do a base act for any public advantage, and that 
 a State can possess no richer patrimony and no purer wealth 
 than the stainless honor of its public men" — men of earnest 
 convictions and noble aims, to whom " power is not a pos- 
 session to be grasped but a trust to be fulfilled." 
 
 The constitution of Alabama, which on the threshold of 
 your legislative duties you swore to support, enjoins that 
 " the General Assembly shall " — an imperative word — " shall 
 establish, organize and maintain a system of public schools 
 throughout the State for the benefit of the children thereof." 
 This is not a temporary, local or subordinate duty. It is 
 general, continuing, paramount, affecting the present and 
 the future, every family, every citizen and every interest of 
 the State. These schools are the colleges for the people, 
 the masses, and in their successful maintenance is the real 
 test of political intelligence and statesmanship. Education, 
 
o 
 
 in a broad sense, includes all the influences that result in 
 growth. It is the product of all the institutions, all the 
 environments of man. It comprehends whatever helps to 
 shape the human being, to stimulate faculties to action, to 
 form habits, to mould character, to make the individual 
 man what he is, or to hinder him from being what he is not. 
 It is both a result aud a process. For our purpose, let us 
 consider it a process of development and transformation so 
 as to realize tlie ideal man and accomplish the end of his 
 being. Education is then not be tested by the quantity or 
 kind of knowledge acquired so much as by the capacity for 
 using knowledge and the " extent to which knowledge 
 gained has been turned into faculty so as to be available 
 for purposes of life." The " new education," of which we 
 hear so much, means the best method that the experience 
 of 4,000 years and the improved knowledge of the human 
 mind and of child nature have evolved for bringing a skilled 
 teacher in contact with the mind of the pupil. 
 
 This capacity for education and for spiritual religion dif- 
 ferentiates the human species from the lower animals. The 
 range of their acquisitions is limited and is usually referred 
 to instinct, as superseding the necessity of reason. Man 
 is made tor education as much as the earth is for culture. 
 Truth and mind are as much complementary as light and 
 the eye. The nature and the needs of man are the same, 
 and hence education is an universal necessity and right. 
 The child of the poor man, of the black man, has the same 
 indefeasible right to the unfolding ot his powers, the exer- 
 tion of his faculties, with the child of the rich man, or of 
 the white man. There is the whole argument in a nutshell. 
 Wherever there is a man — man by virtue of his creation 
 in God's image — a responsible, volitional, immortal man — he 
 has a right to the fullest moral and intellectual development, 
 and to me it seems arrant blasphemy to deny it. 
 
 Education is not only essential to usefulness, happiness 
 
6 
 
 and dignity of man, to truest manhood and womanhood, 
 but also to good government and high civilization. An 
 ignorant people needs restraint, repression, visible and strong 
 authority; a wise people may be entrusted with self- 
 government. " The maximum of education is the minimum 
 of government." Civilization, good order and refinement 
 are proportionate to intelligence. Crime is often to be 
 traced to ignorance or improperly developed faculties. The 
 records of any criminal court or penitentiary will show that 
 the criminal classes are largely furnished by illiterates. The 
 President of the Council on Education in* Great Britain re- 
 cently said, " One of the great features of the working of 
 the Education act had been the startling diminution of 
 crime, especially among juveniles." Mr. Foster, the author r\ 
 of the act, in a late speech, referring to the diminution of 
 crime said i; that progress great and material had been made 
 in the habits, almost in the natures, of men. # * * The 
 two great causes of the beneficial change are education and 
 temperance. As the school rooms grow full, prison cells 
 become vacant. * * * It is far cheaper to pay even a 
 moderate school master than the best of prison wardens.' 
 The report of the Bureau of Education tor 1872, summing* 
 up the evidence of the intimate relation of crime aud igno- 
 rance, says that one-third of all criminals are totally un- 
 educated, that four-fifths are practically uneducated, and 
 that the proportion of criminals from the illiterate classes is 
 at least tenfold as great as the proportion from those having m 
 some education. Education is not regeneration nor a sub- 
 stitute for it, but developed mental power certainly lessens 
 subjection to lower appetites and brutal instincts. As you 
 multiply mental resources, the taste for the gross and sen- 
 sual is somewhat corrected and subdued, higher enjoyments 
 are opened and one's mere impulses are held in check by 
 the habit of thiuking and the companionship of good books. 
 Education is the fundamental basis of general and perma- 
 
nent prosperity. Poverty is the inevitable result of igno- 
 rance. Capital follows the school house. Thrift accom- 
 panies governmental action in behalf of schools. Macaulay, 
 in urging an educational grant, said that State education in 
 Scotland, "tried under disadvantages, produced an improve- 
 ment to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in any 
 age or country." " In spite of the rigor of the climate and 
 the sterility of the earth, Scotland became a country which 
 had no reason to envy the fairest portions of the globe." 
 "If we look at the matter in the lowest point of view, if we 
 consider human beings merely as producers of wealth, the 
 difference between an intelligent and stupid population esti- 
 mated in pounds, shillings and pence, exceeds a hundred 
 fold the proposed outlay." Education opens to the masses 
 new avenues of business and profitable careers, and puts in 
 the hands of all an instrument whereby alone advance in life 
 becomes possible. Success and wealth are to the largest 
 intelligence rather than to the largest capital. Potentiality 
 is more in the brain than in the muscle. The two must 
 form partnership. As the world makes strides, a greater 
 faculty, more industry and more intelligence are required. 
 Unless the laborer is educated, civilized nations are now 
 seeing that his industrial products can not sustain competi- 
 tion in the markets of the world. Mr. Mundella states that 
 40 years ago Germany and other nations saw that the only 
 way to compete with the industries of England, which had 
 an» unrivalled geographical position and could command 
 capital at the lowest rates of interest, was not by wealth but 
 by intelligence, and as a result Liebig introduced science 
 and art in connection with the German industries. Berlin 
 has lately opened a technical college which cost £340,000- 
 England realizes that if she holds her own as the foremost 
 industrial nation, she can not neglect technical education. 
 France, attributing the rise of Germany to her system of 
 education, is making gigantic efforts in the same direction. 
 
8 
 
 If we unite the practical knowledge of field and workshop 
 with the intelligence and knowledge that science brings to 
 bear, we can soon understand what Watt and Stephenson, 
 Bessemer and Whitworth, Howe and Whitney and Edison 
 have done in forwarding the industries of the world. 
 
 Borrowing the thought and somewhat the language of 
 Dr. Wm. T. Harris, I advance a step in the argument and 
 affirm that the recognition of government makes things 
 become property and confirms and protects. The quality 
 of the property depends on the community which recognizes 
 it. In a cultivated community it is raised to a high potency 
 of value. In a barbarous community it may not be worth 
 the risks incident to its possession. Franchises, vested 
 rights, incorporeal hereditaments, copy-rights, patent rights, 
 &c, are the outgrowth of civilization and all imply ad- 
 vanced intelligence. Property in the highest sense exists 
 only where the largest enlightenment obtains. This enlight- 
 enment obtains in proportion to the universality of education. 
 Education is approximately universal only where it is 
 organized, controlled and maintained by the State. Prop- 
 erty in the highest sense can exist only where it is taxed 
 for the education of the people. 
 
 Some contend that it is unjust to burden their property 
 with the education of the children of other people. It may 
 be well to remember that the rights of property are put on 
 a firm basis when its duties are practically acknowledged, 
 and it is to the interest of property to make a generous 
 acknowledgment of these obligations. The rights of prop- 
 erty harmonize with the right of men to be educated, to 
 live truly and worthily, to attain the end of their creatiou. 
 Property must pay a ransom for the privileges it enjoys and 
 it will find it to its advantage to provide insurance against 
 the risks to which it is exposed, to guard against the perils 
 of ignorance, agrarianism, nihilism and dynamite. Educa- 
 tion, it is true, is for the advantage of the children, but also 
 
9 
 
 of the community and the community ought to pay for it. 
 To compel the poor, even if they were able, to educate their 
 children is a tax not proportionate to their ability but to 
 their wants and necessities. Taxation is not an unmixed 
 evil. When taxes collected are expended for just adminis- 
 tration, wise and honest government, maintenance of good 
 roads, providing adequate supply of water and light and 
 sustaining public schools, they are not so much a burden as 
 a proper distribution of a part of the annual product for the 
 protection and welfare of society. Dr. Mayo, so well known 
 and esteemed in the South for his ministry of education, 
 forcibly says, "The State or community that taxes bravely 
 and amply for public education m\\ find itself more and 
 more relieved from the thousand perils of public dishonesty, 
 public corruption, and the hateful charge for crime and 
 pauperism, and the manifold curses that, like a flock of 
 buzzards, hang over an ignorant people." 
 
 Universal education is indispensable to American citizen- 
 ship and tree institutions. For good or for evil, in the United 
 States, Democracy has triumphed and popular government 
 has supplanted the government of the few. In populous 
 countries there is always a helpless, shiftless class, who in a 
 Republic are both a burden and a danger. The problem of 
 free government is complicated by the presence, citizenship 
 and suffrage of the negroes, an alien race of African origin. 
 We must accept the influence of these new and suddenly 
 made citizens, this lower stratum upon society, politics and 
 government. We can not avoid danger or duty by shutting 
 eyes, or casting responsibility on the North. Our own well 
 being is imperiled. The danger increases our obligation. 
 There is solidarity of citizenship. We must lift up the de- 
 graded, or they will drag us down. 
 
 Manhood suffrage is a terrible power and society may 
 well tremble at what it may do for anarchy or despotism. 
 Ten million of men have ballots in their hands and about two 
 
10 
 
 million are illiterate. Of illiterate voters, the census of 
 1880 gives to Alabama 24,450 whites and 95,408 blacks. 
 Add 120,858 colored female adults, and you may well be ap- 
 palled at what confronts the statesman, the patriot, the Christ- 
 ian. I pity the simpleton who wraps himself in the robe of self- 
 complacent ignorance or prejudiceand refuses to look squarely 
 in the face this overmastering question. The great preacher, 
 Eobt. Hall, used this strong language: "Nothing in reality 
 renders legitimate governments so insecure as extreme igno- 
 rance of the people. It is this which yields them an easy prey 
 to seduction, makes them the victims of prejudices and false 
 alarms, and so ferocious withal, that their interference in a time 
 of public commotion is more to be dreaded than the eruption 
 of a volcano. * * * Look at the popular insurrections and 
 massacres in France: of what description of persons were 
 those ruffians composed ? * * They were the very scum 
 of the people, destitute of all moral culture, whose atrocity 
 was only equalled by their ignorance, as might well be ex- 
 pected, when one was the legitimate parent of the other." 
 I have been told since I came to Montgomery that if you 
 educate the "laboiing classes" they will become discontented 
 and aspiring. The imaginations of some men are haunted 
 by the prospective disappearance of scavengers and boot- 
 blacks, when all men are taught the three E's. There is a 
 vague apprehension that somebody's children — not the ob- 
 jectors — being instructed, will be lifted above their station 
 in life. Out of every one hundred children in Saxony and 
 Wurtemburg ninety-six attended school and we have heard 
 of no special disobedience, idleness or insubordination in those 
 countries where children are so highly favored. What 
 creates discontent with an inferior position is to be en- 
 couraged. Man's vocation is perpetual growth. Let him 
 push beyond and above the hard and narrow limits of the 
 present and reach after the ideal. No one should be con- 
 tent to remain in servitude and vassalage. " These that 
 
11 
 
 have turned the world upside down have come hither also." 
 It is a libel on the social order to make it dependent on ig- 
 norance and servility. Instead of letting distinctions rest 
 on mere artificial conventionalities, or legal subordinations? 
 let them rather rest on usefulness, integrity, fidelity to 
 truth, aristocracy of soul. ISTiebuhr said, years ago, of the 
 Italians that they were destitute of hope and all the springs 
 of great and noble thoughts were choked up. An American 
 citizen should not be a mere machine, a proletary. " The 
 finest fruit earth holds up to its maker is a man," a de- 
 veloped man. Trade, law, government, science, education 
 and religion are but so many schoolmasters tor training a 
 man. "Europe ends at Pyrennees and then Africa begins." 
 Two centuries ago Spain was a first class power. Now she 
 is below some of her then Colonies. Out of a population 
 of 17,000,000, two and a quarter million can not read and 
 only 715,000 women can read. That tells the tale. 
 
 Alabama has sought with courage and wisdom to meet 
 the constitutional requirement in reference to education and 
 to adapt herself to the changes which have occurred since 
 1860. A comparison of school statistics for five years shows 
 most commendable progress. ^m 
 
 WHITES. 
 
 1879. school pop. 214.098. 
 18<S4. " " 233.555. 
 1879. num. enrol. 100.950. 
 1884. " " 131.513. 
 1879. av. daily at. 65.936. 
 1884. " " " < 8.815. 
 1879. no schs. taug't 3. 1 77. 
 1884. " " u 3.421. 
 
 1879. am'texp'd w. sch. $208,568. col. sch. $155,849. 
 1884. " " 284.649. " " 202.131. 
 
 An efficient public school s} 7 stem needs a well defined and 
 permanent educational policy, the product of sagacious and 
 
 COL. 
 
 TOTAL. 
 
 162.551. 
 
 376.649. 
 
 186.209. 
 
 419.764. 
 
 /* i— not 
 
 174.585. 
 
 84.065. 
 
 215.578. 
 
 46 438. 
 
 112.374. 
 
 55.595. 
 
 134.410. 
 
 1.494. 
 
 4.671. 
 
 1.797. 
 
 5.218. 
 
12 
 
 liberal statesmanship, unalterable except for improvement. 
 Free schools are a perpetual duty and can not be discharged 
 once for all. The obligation is continuing, co-extensive with 
 and necessary to the well being and life of the State. The 
 system of schools is not so much an immediate creation as a 
 steady growth. We should strive to perfect, to have a sus- 
 taining public opinion behind, to create a well merited con- 
 fidence, to have schools good enough for the richest and 
 cheap enough for the poorest. Governors, judges, legisla- 
 tors and citizens should accustom themselves to look upon 
 public schools as they do upon habeas corpus or trial by 
 jury, as the foundation of prosperity, the crown of glory. 
 
 (a) The State should enjoin and maintain in every town 
 and school district, where the population justifies, a suf- 
 ficient number of schools for the education of all the chil- 
 dren in the rudimentary branches. If left to the will of each 
 locality, there will not be a general or uniform system. To 
 secure economy and efficiency in teaching, the schools 
 should be graded according to the capacity of the pupils. 
 
 (b) General revenues are needed to equalize burdens, 
 make schools possible in poorer and less populous sections, 
 justify State supoigision and control, and ensure the con- 
 tinuance and permanence of the system. No tax on prop- 
 erty is more legitimate than that for universal education. 
 Unless this is recognized, the system had better be abol- 
 ished. Experience has shown that voluntary or denomina- 
 tional enterprise is inadequate to secure general education. 
 This necessarily is the work of the State. " A limitation of 
 intelligence is a limitation of citizenship, and ignorance on 
 the part of some is an abridgement of the liberty of others." 
 
 (<•) The general appropriation should be supplemented by 
 local taxation. The most efficient schools are those where 
 the local revenues are constant and liberal. Local interest 
 is secured, — watchfulness as to results, and an energetic 
 public sentiment. 
 
13 
 
 (d) State superintendent to take general supervision is- 
 indispensable. Special qualifications are needed, for he is to- 
 be clothed with authority and responsibility. He should be 
 a superior man, full of enthusiasm, knowing thoroughly the 
 work of each grade of his schools, and ever on the alert to 
 secure excellence. He is to understand and interpret the 
 school law, to study other systems, to suggest or introduce 
 reforms, to stimulate interest in his work, to attend Insti- 
 tutes, to keep himself en rapport with teachers and be their 
 adviser and friend. The office should not be political, nor 
 conferred as a reward for partisan services. The general 
 administration should be on a strictly non-partisan basis 
 and without any political entanglements. A school officer, 
 or teacher, no more than a juryman, should be chosen for 
 his party relations. Frequent changes are a serious misfor- 
 tune; permanence ensures experience, intelligence and pro- 
 gress. 
 
 (e) Local agencies are needful auxiliaries to the general 
 direction, and thorough county supervision has been de- 
 monstrated to be most helpful in bringing the schools up to 
 the proper standard. 
 
 (f) In assuming the responsibility of establishing and 
 maintaining free schools, there is the resulting obligation of 
 providing trained teachers. Public school teachers are to 
 be the only teachers of the masses. Obviously there is 
 much waste of money, time and talents in employing un- 
 skilled and incompetent teachers. The income of the Pea- 
 body Fund is hereafter to be used largely in teacher train- 
 ing. Observation and inquiry furnish conclusive evidence 
 as to the advantage of traiued teachers, in the methods and? 
 processes of instruction, in the organization and manage- 
 ment and discipline of the schools, in elevating the profes- 
 sion of teaching, and in educating the people to a better es- 
 timate of the true object and value of the school system.. 
 Normal Schools and Teachers' Institutes have been found 
 
14 
 
 to be the most efficient instrumentalities for the instruction 
 of teachers. This State has three normal schools for white 
 and three for colored teachers. They might be more dis- 
 tinctively normal and will doubtless improve in that respect. 
 Nothing has been done for Teachers' Institutes. Teaching 
 well is difficult and demands special culture and training. 
 " Knowing what should be taught, and how to teach it, is a 
 high art." The education received in schools and colleges 
 is a meagre result compared with what might be accom- 
 plished if teachers knew how to teach so as to secure the 
 best results. A good scholar is not necessarily a good 
 teacher. The wliat and the how are two very different 
 things. If the art of teaching is founded on the science of edu- 
 cation, and the science of education is founded on the science 
 of the mind, then it is not true that any respectable anybody, 
 any Dogberry, or Squeers, or Dominie Sampson can teach. 
 Any dolt can hear a lesson, drill in the multiplication table, 
 teach by rote, but to pursue a rational method in accor- 
 auce with the nature of the being to be taught aud the or- 
 derly evolution of the mind's powers is a higher process. 
 To proceed from simple to complex, particular to general, 
 concrete to abstract, empirical to rational and logical, from 
 observed facts or things to generalized or scientific knowl- 
 edge, requires training. The Prussians say whatever you 
 would have appear in the life of a nation you must first put 
 into its schools, and whatever you would put into schools 
 must first be put into the teacher. 
 
 I have, gentlemen, presented some dark and stubborn 
 facts, which lie in the pathway of your progress, but I am 
 no pessimist and sing no doleful jeremiads in reference to 
 the future. I have no sympathy with those who would 
 keep alive alienations betwixt North and South, or who 
 would dig deep chasms betwixt the so-called "upper and 
 lower classes"; nor with that Toryism or Bourbonism which 
 resists all progress and is indifferent to the welfare of the 
 
15 
 
 people. God reigus. Truth will triumph. In the mother 
 land, we have seen the franchise extended, civil disabilities 
 removed, religious tests abolished, taxes reduced, and the 
 establishment partly overthrown. The growth of our coun- 
 try can not be arrested, if lawmakers, rulers and people 
 heed the teachings of experience and the word of God. 
 With near 60,000,000 people, increasing 2,000,000 annually, 
 125,000 miles of railway, boundless territory, exhaustless 
 resources and the stimulus of free institutions, no god Ter- 
 minus can stay our advance. In Europe one in every 
 twenty is a soldier, and one in every twenty has to sustain 
 the soldiers. Growing armies, expensive wars, increasing 
 debts, heavier taxes. Misery and wrong engendercommunism 
 and nihilism. We are exempt from these evils but what we 
 hold and enjoy is in trust and with the trust comes respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 Within a few days has appeared in the newspapers a let- 
 ter from Col. McOlure of the Philadelphia Times, in which 
 he says " Alabama has been gifted far beyond even our 
 boasted empire of Pennsylvania" — and he refers to the 
 11,000 square miles of coal, the illimitable supplies of iron 
 ore and limestone, and the marvellous development of coal 
 and iron products "during a season of continued and 
 steadily decreasing depression in the iron and coal trade of 
 the country." The proximity of the mineral wealth to the 
 Gult of Mexico and the contemplated inter-oceanic highway 
 induced some of us, years ago, to favor the construction of 
 transportation lines and the opeuiug of these mines of wealth. 
 They give to you a most invitiug future; they promise to 
 make Alabama one of the richest States of the Union. So 
 mote it be. We shall not forget, in the presence of this 
 oriental wealth, that honesty and intelligence are at the 
 basis of individual, corporate, State and national prosperity. 
 Prosperity comes from honest administration, honest trade, 
 honest money, honest and intelligent labor, quick and cheap 
 
16 
 
 exchange of products. " Individual intelligence and integ- 
 rity, sustained by public justice, constitute the sole condi- 
 tion under which permanent prosperity can be the rule 
 among men." 
 
 You are making in New Orleans an exposition of your 
 products and resources. That is wise but your real wealth, 
 real greatness, is not in cotton, lumber, iron, coal, marble, 
 banks, railways, but in the minds and hearts of your boys 
 and girls. Your future glory depends on your efforts and 
 success in making the youth of Alabama intelligent, indus- 
 trious and virtuous. " To leave them in mental and moral 
 darkness, ignorant, superstitious, indolent, brutal, quarrel- 
 some, and shut up to little, narrow lives, is the surest way 
 on earth" to blight and impoverish the State. " No com- 
 munity that understands its own interest will evade or re- 
 sist the utmost possible sacrifice for that public education 
 which pays everybody as no ' other outlay does." I con- 
 gratulate you, legislators, that you are, by the favor of your 
 constituents, placed in a position where you can take the 
 lead in doing so much, and so beneficiently, for the pros- 
 perity and the honor of the people. 
 
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