nt in favor of virtue. There should be some pioneers in favor of
forming a correct public sentiment; and when it is formed it moves on
irresistibly. It is like the river made up of drops from the mountain
side, moving on with more and more power, until everything in its waters
is carried to the destined end.

So in a public school. And it is worth much to the man of wealth that
there may be, near his own door, an institution to which he may send his
children, and under the influence of which they may be carried forward.
For, depend upon it, after all we say about schools and institutions of
learning, it is nevertheless true of education, as a statesman has said
of the government, that the people look to the school for too much. It
is not, after all, a great deal that the child gets there; but, if he
only gets the ability to acquire more than he has, the schools
accomplish something. If you give a child a little knowledge of
geography or arithmetic, and have not developed the power to accomplish
something for himself, he comes to but little in the world. But put him
into the school,--the primary, grammar, and high school, where he must
learn for himself,--and he will be fitted for the world of life into
which he is to enter.

You will see in this statement that, with the same parties, the same
means of education, the same teachers, the public schools will
accomplish more than private schools.

I find everywhere, and especially in the able address of Mr. Gulliver,
to which I have referred, that the public schools are treated as of
questionable morality, and it is implied that something would be gained
by removing certain children from the influence of these schools. If I
were speaking from another point of view, very likely I should feel
bound to hold up the evils and defects which actually exist in public
schools; but when I consider them in contrast with endowed and private
schools, I do not hesitate to say that the public schools compare
favorably; and, as the work of education goes on, the comparison will be
more and more to their advantage. Why? I know something of the private
institutions in Massachusetts; and there are boys in them who have left
the public schools because they have fallen in their classes, and the
public interest would not justify their continuance in the schools. It
was always true that private schools did not represent the world exactly
as it was. It is worth everything to a boy or girl, man or