pportunity to send their children to good public schools. It is a maxim
in education that the teacher must first comprehend the pupil mentally
and morally; and might not many of the errors of individual and public
life be avoided, if the citizen, from the first, were to have an
accurate idea of the world in which he is to live? The demand of labor
upon education, as they are connected with every material interest of
society, is, that no one shall be neglected. The mind of a nation is
its capital. We are accustomed to speak of money as capital; and
sometimes we enlarge the definition, and include machinery, tools,
flocks, herds, and lands. But for this moment let us do what we have a
right to do,--go behind the definitions of lexicographers and political
economists, and say, "_capital_ is the producing force of society, and
that force is mind." Without this force, money is nothing; machinery is
nothing; flocks, herds, lands, are nothing. But all these are made
valuable and efficient by the power of mind. What we call
civilization,--passing from an inferior to a superior condition of
existence,--is a mental and moral process. If mind is the capital,--the
producing force of society,--what shall we say of the person or
community that neglects its improvement? Certainly, all that we should
say of the miser, and all that was said of the timid servant who buried
his talent in the earth. If one mind is neglected, then we fail as a
generation, a state, a nation, as members of the human family, to answer
the highest purposes of existence. Some possible good is unaccomplished,
some desirable labor is unperformed, some means of progress is
neglected, some evil seed, it may be, is sown, for which this generation
must answer to all the successions of men. But let us not yield to the
prejudice, though sanctioned by custom, that learning unfits men for
the labors of life. The _schools_ may sometimes do this, but _learning_
never. We cannot, however, conceal from our view the fact that this
prejudice is a great obstacle to progress, even in New England; an
obstacle which may not be overcome without delay and conflict, in many
states of this Union; and especially in Great Britain is it an obstacle
in the way of those who demand a system of universal education.

In the House of Commons, Mr. Drummond opposes a national system of
education in this wise: "And, pray, what do you propose to rear your
youth for? Are you going to train them for s