Public School Education
ources. They are all well, indeed over-educated. The greater part of their families are necessarily in poor or moderate circumstances. Will their learned and acc
ce situations as clerks, professors, editors, teachers, et
adversity and prosperity," "rich and poor," "obedience and authority," "liberty and law," etc., etc. All these are enigmas to him, or, if he affects to understand them at all, he thinks they arise from bad management or bad government, and can and ought to be remedied by repression or sumptuary legislation. He will be a tyrant or slave, a glutton or miser, a fanatic or libertine,
and cruel; out of power, he will be faithless, hypocritical and subservient. Trust him with authority, he will abuse it; trust him with money, he will steal it; trust him with your confidence, and he will betray it. Such a man-Pagan and unprincipled as h
would require a miracle! Nay, even a miracle would fail to make a salutary impression upon such a heart. A French infidel declared that, should he be told that the most remarkable miracle was occurring close by his house, he would not take a step out of his way to see it. Pride never surrenders; it prefers rather to take an illogical position than to bow even
l brutes, he relies on force, and tries and judges every issue by success. What he calls "the final arbitrament of arms" is to such a one a righteous decision, provided always it be in his favor. He may affect the demagogue, and talk loudly about the power of the people, but you will observe that this refers to them en masse, in the whole or concrete. He cannot understand the individual man as entitled to any consideration or rights (unless he happened to be made rich) independently of the State. Indeed, he looks upon poor men as made for the State, and it can be only on this ground tha