employments and our business relations, are all parts of our education and frequently of preponderating influence. Then in a free country, there is the information we derive from the proceedings of our district and town and other public meetings, our courts and juries, our various and intense political agitations, and the all-pervading influence of the press. The influence of the Bible and of the religious and metaphysical discussion growing out of the questions connected with it, not only on the morals but on the intellect of a people, can hardly be overrated. All these influences, some for good and some for evil, are in modern times brought to bear upon every member of society.

The School is therefore but a small part of the young man's education. It is in fact merely the means to future education, giving him the instruments wherewith to educate himself, and giving us also an opportunity to instili into his mind correct principles to guide him in his future course.

But even in this view it is all-important. Every thing depends upon the influences under which the child starts in life. If you do not subject him to good influences, he will almost inevitably be subjected to bad. The stable school, the store school, the street school, and the wharf school,* will be always open to him, free of charge, and in them even dullness will be sure to learn.

There is no danger that too many will be educated. Our whole vast country is open to us as a theatre for the employment of our energies. New England has always furnished and as long as their systems of education are inferior and as uneducated foreign emigrants multiply, will continue to furnish a large portion of the professional and literary men of the other States. It seems to be the mission of New England. Why should not Rhode Island do its part towards

*The subject of a most interesting lecture before one of our Teachers' Institutes, by Rev. Thomas H. Vail, of Westerly.

furnishing the educated men of the new States? At present we do not furnish even our own.

Even within our own borders for some years a great change has been going on. Our hard labor in our cities, wharves, workshops, and even on our farms, is beginning to be done by uneducated foreigners. Yankee intelligence and enterprise find more profitable employment. Headwork seems to be the yankee's peculiar business. This change has been slowly going on for years. It is only a part however of the ordinary course of Divine Providence by which intelligence goes ahead of ignorance. This emigration should lead us to be doubly earnest in the work of education. We cannot prevent it if we would. For two hundred years this country has been the refuge of the oppressed of all nations. It will continue to be so. We would not selfishly close it against them, but with a broad and comprehensive charity we would educate and qualify them for the part they have to perform in our future history. Their descendants are to be our fellow citizens, perhaps our judges and rulers. Our own safety, the prosperity of our country, the purity of our government, depend upon the education of all, rich and poor, native and foreigner.

OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF A PUB. LIC EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

But if education be important, as we all hold it to be in a republican government, we should be cautious not to advocate it upon principles or promote it in a manner inconsistent with these fundamental ideas upon which republicanism is based.

What then is our idea of republicanism or of democracy, for we commonly use these terms as meaning the same thing, although they do not strictly. A republic or commonwealth is not necessarily a democracy. By a democracy we mean a State where the body of the people themselves exercise

the powers of government directly and without the medium of representation, as in some of the states of antiquity. This is not practicable in any large or extensive country.

The great security for the preservation of the liberties of a people is not in the power being nominally in the people, which is of very little consequence if they neglect the exercise of it, nor in the people's occasionally exercising the power of electing their despots-but in the fact that the people do actually and practically take part in the management of affairs themselves.

The perfection of government would be, undoubtedly, self government—a state where every man should be a law unto himself—should govern himself and conform to the right without being compelled by outward force. This however we do not expect to attain to.

But if we cannot attain to perfection, we have at least a choice of systems. It should be our anxious desire, as we value freedom, to bring the management of State affairs home to every man, to localise government, so to speak-to endeavor to have every man interested in and sharing in the disposal of the affairs of his neighborhood, and as far as possible the concerns of the State also. This is practically done in our system by our subdivisions into counties, towns and school districts, and in some States into parishes. Every man thus is brought to be acquainted more or less with public affairs. They are the schools of our liberty, without which other schools would be of little value.

We are so familiar with these things here-we are so used to managing our own affairs, that we do not sufficiently value the privilege. To make a fair estimate of its value, we need only look at the condition of other countries. Take France for instance; why have so many revolutions in France always ended in despotism? France has been for ages a centralized government-that is, the people in the different portions of the country have had little or no share in

the government. All the officers have been appointed and everything ordered from the city of Paris. Not a road or bridge could be repaired, or the smallest local improvement made, without being authorized by those in power at Paris. The people contracted a habit of looking to the government at Paris for everything, of depending upon the central government for everything, and of not relying upon their own resources or on their own judgment for any thing. They lost—rather never had any knowledge of governing themselves. Paris became France. When a revolution came, they all looked to Paris for their new masters, never thinking or dreaming that they had anything to do but to obey, and caring very little whom they obeyed.

From the state of France we may also learn another fact —that equality of condition is no security for the liberties of a people. There is probably no country where the great mass of the people approach so near to each other in equality of condition as to property, and they are all equal before the law. Yet they are not free.

As an example of a different state of things, consider England. England is not a free country as compared with ours, but she is free as compared with the other countries of Europe. And we have little hesitation in saying that a considerable portion of the liberty they enjoy is owing to their having always preserved their local municipal institutions.

Our ancestors or many of them emigrated from England here at a period when the highest notions of liberty and individual independence prevailed there. Even if they had had no training in the practice of local government at home, the necessity of their situation forced them to govern themselves. Wealth and luxury did not exist to corrupt them, and so they learned and practiced the art of self government under influences best adapted to a healthy development.

We have in our country carried the principle of local self

government farther than is done in any country of modern times, farther perhaps than it was ever carried in any country of considerable extent. In the first place, we are a nation of confederated States, each in its own sphere sovereign. Then we are again subdivided into counties, towns, parishes and districts, each managing its own local affairs. Here every man learns to take an interest in the public welfare. I have said they are the schools of liberty. Better lose all other schools than these.

It is a matter of course that when one of these little communities meets talk over its affairs, there will be conflict of opinion. Some are ignorant, some are prejudiced, some are attached to old notions and averse to innovation. There will be continued Citation, and sometimes a change of course without reason. The system is not perfect, merely because man is not perfect.

But manage their affairs as they will, with all their faults, it is far better, taking all things into consideration, and not looking merely to the success of the one object which we may wish to succeed, it is far better that their affairs should be managed by themselves, even if occasionally managed badly, than to have them managed with more wisdom by a superior power which should save them the trouble of governing themselves.

We should regard this principle of local self government as essential to the preservation of our liberties. We should guard watchfully against any encroachments on it. And this is the more necessary because the danger is not entirely from without. We are apt ourselves, when worried and fretted, when political affairs do not go as we like, to give up all interest in them, to throw them off upon any one who will take the trouble. This self government is a very troublesome thing. We see this every where. We want to save the trouble of thinking in religious matters, and so we take