or not, has ever
escaped from a condition of poverty. And the converse of the proposition
is undoubtedly true, that an intelligent laboring community will soon
become a wealthy community. Learning is sure to produce wealth; wealth
is likely to contribute to learning, but it does not necessarily produce
it. Hence it follows that learning is the only means by which the poor
can escape from their poverty.

In this statement it is assumed that education does not promote vice;
and not only is this negative assumption true, but it is safe to assume,
further, that education favors virtue, and that any given population
will be less vicious when educated than when ignorant. This, I cannot
doubt, is a general truth, subject, of course, to some exceptions.

The educational struggle in which the English people are now engaged has
made distinct and tangible certain opinions and impressions that are
latent in many minds. There has been an attempt to show that vice has
increased in proportion to education. This attempt has failed, though
there may be found, of course, in all countries, single facts, or
classes of facts, that seem to sustain such an opinion.

Now, suppose this case,--and neither this case nor any similar one has
ever occurred in real life,--but suppose crime to increase as a people
were educated, though there should be no increase of population; would
this fact prove that learning made men worse? By no means. Our answer is
apparent on the face of the change itself. By education, the business,
and pecuniary relations and transactions of a people are almost
indefinitely multiplied; and temptations to crime, especially to crimes
against property, are multiplied in an equal ratio. Would person or
property be better respected in New York or Boston, if the most ignorant
population of the world could be substituted for the present
inhabitants of those cities? The business nerves of men are frequently
shocked by some unexpected defalcation, and short-sighted moralists, who
lack faith, exclaim, "All this is because men know so much!" Such
certainly forget that for every defaulter in a city there are hundreds
of honest men, who receive and render justly unto all, and hold without
check the fortunes of others. So Mr. Drummond argued in the British
House of Commons against a national system of education, because what he
was pleased to call _instruction_ had not saved William Palmer and John
Sadlier. But the truth in this matter