America. A history

CHAPTER IV

EDUCATION IN AMERICA

The Pilgrim Fathers carried with them to New England a deep persuasion that the people of the State which they went to found must be universally educated. Not otherwise could the enduring success of their great enterprise be hoped for. It was their care from the very outset to provide in such manner as circumstances enabled them for the education of their children. The germ of a free-school system is to be found in each of their youthful settlements. The records of the European countries of the time would be searched in vain for evidence of a sentiment so deeply seated, so widely prevalent, so enlightened as the New England desire that all children should be educated. Its sincerity was proved by the willingness of the people to submit to taxation in the cause. In the early days of Connecticut one-fourth of the revenues of the colony was applied to the support of schools. Long before the revolution, schools maintained by public funds and free of charge to the pupils had extended widely over the New England States. This love of education has never cooled. When the colonists gained their independence and established themselves as an association of freemen, conducting their own public affairs, a new urgency was added to the necessity that all should be educated. It was clearly seen, even then, that while ignorant men might be serviceable subjects of a despotism, only educated citizens were capable of self-government. Northern America sought to build the fabric of republican institutions upon the solid and durable foundation of universal enlightenment.

In the Southern States the aristocratic tendencies which the slave-system fostered were adverse to the education of the poor. The slave-owners desired submission; their property was not improved in value, but the reverse, by education. While America was still a dependency, a question was put to the Governor of Virginia by the English Commissioners for Foreign Plantations. “I thank God,” replied the Governor, “there are no free schools or printing-presses, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years.” The Governor’s hope was more than fulfilled. The common-school system was almost unknown in the South while slavery existed. It became criminal to teach a slave to read; the poor white had no desire to learn, and no one sought to teach him. At the close of the rebellion the mass of the Southern population were as little educated as the Russian peasants are to-day. But peace was no sooner restored than the eager desire of the negroes for education was met by the generous efforts of the North. Northern teachers were quickly at work among the negro children. So soon as the means of the ruined States permitted, the common-school system of the North was set up. It entailed burdens which they were then ill able to bear. But these burdens have been borne with a willingness which is evidence that the South now recognizes her need of education. Notwithstanding their poverty, some of the States yield for school purposes a rate of taxation larger for each member of the population than is that of England.

The American people manifest a profound and, as recent reports indicate, an increasing interest in their system of common schools. It is not merely or chiefly the personal advantage of the individual citizen which concerns them. It is the greatness and permanence of the State.9 “Free education for all is the prime necessity of republics.” Institutions which rest altogether upon popular support demand, as essential to their safety, the support of an instructed people. It was the same conviction which impressed itself upon Great Britain when, having conceded household suffrage, she hastened to set up a compulsory and universal system of education, that the dangers likely to arise from the ignorance of the new electors might be averted. Moreover, the Americans believe firmly that without educated labour eminence in the industrial arts is not attainable. According to an estimate which has grown out of the experience of employers, the educated labourer is more valuable by twenty-five per cent. than his ignorant rival. Here is a source of national wealth which no wise State will disregard. It is the American theory that the State – the associated citizens – has a proprietary interest in each of its members. For the good of the community, it is entitled to insist that every citizen shall become as effective as it is possible to make him; to expend public funds in order to that result is therefore a warrantable and remunerative outlay.

Looking thus upon the value of public instruction, the American people have borne willingly the heavy costs of the common school. They suffer taxation ungrudgingly at a rate which, for the smaller population of England and Wales, would amount to nine million sterling instead of the four million actually expended. Nor is this the easy product of lands set apart for educational purposes at a time when land was valueless. Many of the States wisely set apart one-sixteenth of their land to uphold their schools. But in many of the old States the appropriation was not respected; too often, especially in the South, the endowment was applied to other uses. The revenue derived now from any description of endowment does not exceed five per cent. of the whole; the remainder comes from State or local taxation. At one time, in some of the States, fees were charged from the pupils. But the opinion came to be widely entertained that this charge impaired in many ways the efficiency of the system. Six or eight years ago fees were discontinued, and now the schools of the nation are free to all. The Americans witness with approbation the increase of their expenditure on education. During the ten years which preceded the rebellion this expenditure was doubled; again, during the ten years which followed it was trebled. It has now grown to nearly eighteen million sterling – a sum larger than all the nations of Europe unitedly expend for the same purpose. Large as it is, however, it is equal to no more than two-thirds of the sum which Britain still expends upon her military and naval preparations.

The common school is used by all classes of the American people. At one time there existed among the rich a disposition to have their children educated with others of their own social position, and many private schools sprang up to meet their demand. As the common schools have increased in efficiency, and consequently in public favour, this disposition has weakened, and private schools have decayed. Their number is much smaller now than it was ten years ago, and continues to diminish. With one unhappy exception, the common school satisfies the requirements of the American people. The leaders of the Roman Catholic body perceive that its influences are adverse to the growth of their tenets, and do not cease to demand the means of educating their children apart from the children of those who hold religious beliefs differing from theirs. But their proposals meet with no favour beyond the limits of their own denomination, and even there only partial support is given. The American Roman Catholic is more apt than his brethren in Europe to fall into the disloyal practice of independent judgment. It has not been found possible to alienate him wholly from the common school.

It is of interest to inquire in what measure the American people have been requited by the success of their common-school system for the vast sums which they expend on its maintenance. At first sight the statistics of the subject seem to return a discouraging reply to such an inquiry. When the census of 1870 was taken it disclosed a high percentage of illiteracy. Seventeen adult males and twenty-three adult females in every hundred were wholly uneducated – numbers almost as high as those of England at the same period. But the special circumstances of the country explain these figures in a manner which relieves the common school of all blame. The larger portion of this illiteracy had its home in the Southern States and among the coloured population, whose ignorance had been carefully preserved by wicked laws and a corrupted public feeling. Again, America had received during the ten years which preceded the census an immigration of four and a half million persons. The educational condition of those strangers was low, and their presence therefore bore injuriously upon the averages which were reported. The common school must be judged in the Northern States and among the native white population, for there only has it had full opportunity to act. And there it has achieved magnificent success. In the New England States there is not more than one uneducated native of ten years and upwards in every hundred. In the other Northern States the average is scarcely so favourable. The uneducated number from two up to four in every hundred.

It thus appears that the common school has banished illiteracy from the North. The native American of the Northern States is almost invariably a person who has received, at the lowest, a sound primary education. The efforts by which this result has been reached began with the foundation of each State, and have been continued uninterruptedly throughout its whole history. In the rising industrial competition of the time, it must count for much that American artisans are not only educated men and women, but are the descendants of educated parents. A nation which expends upon education a sum larger than all the nations of Europe unitedly expend; which contents itself with an army of twenty-five thousand soldiers; whose citizens are exempt from the curse of idle years laid by the governments of Continental Europe upon their young men, – such a nation cannot fail to secure a victorious position in the great industrial struggle which all civilized States are now compelled to wage for existence.

CHAPTER V

EUROPE AND AMERICA

From the very dawn of her history, America has been a powerful factor in the solution of many great European problems. In the early days of her settlement she offered a welcome refuge from the oppression and poverty of the Old World. Her assertion of independence inflamed the impulses which were preparing the French Revolution with all its unforeseen and incalculable consequences, and hastened the coming of that tremendous occurrence. Throughout the half century of struggle by which Europe vindicated her freedom, it was a constant stimulus to patriot effort to know that, beyond the sea, there was a country where men were at liberty to prosecute their own welfare unimpeded by the restraints which despotism imposes. A constant light was thrown by American experience upon the questions which agitated Europe. Men accustomed to be told that they were unfit to bear any part in the government of their country, saw men such as they themselves were enjoying political privileges in America, and governing a continent to the general advantage. Men accustomed to be told that State support was indispensable to the existence of the Church, saw religion becomingly upheld in America by the spontaneous offerings of the people. Methods of government altogether unlike those of Europe were practised in America; and Europe had constant opportunity of judging how far these methods surpassed or fell short of her own. Europe lived under a system of government which scarcely regarded individual rights, and cared supremely for the interests of the State – meaning ordinarily by that the interests or caprices of a very few persons. In America the State was an organization whose purpose was mainly the protection of individual rights. On the eastern shores of the Atlantic the belief still prevailed that in every nation the Almighty had conveyed to some one man the right to deal as he pleased with the lives and property of all the others. On the western shores of the Atlantic a great nation acted on the theory that national interests were merely the interests which the aggregated individual citizens had in common,10 and that government was nothing more than an association of persons whose duty it was to guide those interests in conformity with the public desire. The American doctrine extended into Europe, and contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the growth of liberal ideas and the overthrow of despotism. The sustained exhibition upon a scale so vast of freedom in thought and action, with its happy results in contentment and prosperity, could not fail to impress deeply the oppressed nations of Europe. Here were a people who made their own laws, who obeyed no authority which was not of their own appointment, to whom decrees, and ukases, and all the hateful utterances of despotism were unknown. Here were millions of men enjoying perfect equality of opportunity to seek their own welfare; here was life free from the burden of a class inaccessibly superior to the great mass of the people. The daily influences of American life sapped the fabric of privilege, and helped the European people to vindicate the rights of which they had been deprived.

The influence which America exerts upon the currents of European history must continue to increase in power. Her population, reinforced as it is by emigration from less happily circumstanced countries, grows more rapidly than any European population. Her artisans are better educated than those of any other country, and they are therefore more effective for industrial purposes. They are free from the burden of military service, which in Continental Europe absorbs those years of a young man’s life when the hands gain expertness and the mind forms habits of industry. In the capacity of mechanical invention – the breath of life to an industrial nation – they are manifestly superior to Europe. The competition of this intelligent, ingenious, rapidly increasing people, fired by an ambition to become great as a manufacturing nation, cannot fail to influence directly and powerfully the industrial future of the European nations.

As the population and the wealth of America increase, the testimony which her example bears in favour of individual right and absolute freedom of thought will become more conspicuous and influential. The rebuke which her attitude of universal peace and her inconsiderable military expenditure administer to the diseased suspicions and measureless waste of Europe will become more emphatic, perhaps even in some degree more effective, than it has yet proved to be. Thus far, the teaching of America in regard to the maintenance of huge armies in time of peace has been rejected as inapplicable to the existing circumstances of Europe. But it may fairly be hoped that in course of years the industrial competition of a great people who have freed themselves from heavy burdens which their competitors still bear will enforce upon Europe economies of which neither governments nor people are as yet sufficiently educated to perceive the necessity.

America has still something to learn from the riper experience and more patient thinking of England. But it has been her privilege to teach to England and the world one of the grandest of lessons. She has asserted the political rights of the masses. She has proved to us that it is safe and wise to trust the people. She has taught that the government of the people should be “by the people and for the people.”

Let our last word here be a thankful acknowledgment of the inestimable service which she has thus rendered to mankind.

POSTSCRIPT 11

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

The reconstruction of the Union was completed during General Grant’s term of office. The Presidentship of his successor, Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes, was uneventful. It was not on that account the less fruitful in good results. The complete amalgamation of the North and the South could only be the work of time. President Hayes helped forward this useful work. He visited the South in his first year of office, and was everywhere well received.

The Census of 1880 showed the population of the United States to be upwards of fifty million. The increase during the previous ten years had been eleven million and a half, or at the extraordinary rate of more than a million a year.

During Mr. Hayes’ Presidentship, two questions became prominent, and sharply divided political parties. These were, the resumption of cash payments, and the reform of the Civil Service.

1878 A.D. The Currency Controversy is remarkable for having brought the President into conflict with Congress. The Bland Silver Bill, making the silver dollar a legal tender, was passed by large majorities both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. President Hayes had no faith in the doctrine of bi-metallism, and he vetoed the Bill. The Bill was re-passed in both Houses by a two-thirds majority, and became law in spite of the presidential veto. The conflict subjected the Constitution to a severe strain. But the crisis passed quietly, showing how well-grounded is the faith of the Americans in the fitness of their Constitution to meet all exigencies.

The demand for a reform in the Civil Service had been growing for years. The revelations of electoral corruption filled men of independent spirit with shame and confusion. The evil practices were not confined to a particular party. Republicans and Democrats were equally unscrupulous. It was proved by strict inquiry that in two States the majority for President Hayes himself had been obtained by fraudulent means. The constitutional custom which makes every office in the Civil Service, from the highest to the lowest, change hands whenever power is transferred from one party to another, was felt to be the root of the evil.

1881 A.D. When President James Garfield assumed office in March 1881, he announced his intention of dealing firmly and earnestly with the question of administrative reform. Garfield’s election to the dignity of President was unexpected. The chief Republican candidates were General Grant, who had previously held the office for two terms, Secretary Sherman, and Senator Blaine. In the Republican convention held at Chicago for the selection of a candidate, General Garfield acted as manager of the party which supported Sherman. When he was first proposed he declined to become a candidate. It was only when Sherman’s success was seen to be impossible, and when all the parties opposed to Grant coalesced in favour of Garfield, that his name came to the front. He was ultimately chosen unanimously as the Republican candidate, on the ground that he divided the party the least. In the election itself, which was mainly determined by the vote of New York State, Garfield defeated his Democratic opponent General Hancock by 219 votes to 185.

Comparatively little was known about the new President before he was elected. Even in America his selection was a surprise. The chief fact that was known about him was that he had risen, like Abraham Lincoln, from the humblest origin. He had been born in a log-hut in the forest of Ohio. He had begun life on the tow-path as a driver of mules which dragged a canal boat between Cleveland and Pittsburg. By his own energy alone he had risen. He had been a professor, a preacher, a successful soldier, a practical lawyer, a bold and ready party leader. Throughout life he had been noted for fearless honesty. In his public career, no taint of corruption was found attaching to any part of his conduct. The man who should undertake to reform the abuses in the official system of America must himself have clean hands, and Garfield’s hands were clean.

General Garfield’s election was held to be a great triumph for the Republican party, but especially for that section of it which advocated Civil Service reform. He had made no secret of his opinions on that subject. In the outline of his political creed which he issued soon after his selection as Republican candidate he expressed his agreement with those who urged the necessity of “placing the Civil Service on a better basis.” The remedy to which he pointed was that “Congress should devise a method that will determine the tenure of office.” In his inaugural address on assuming office, he intimated his intention of taking steps to apply this remedy. Two objects, he said, must be aimed at. The one was to protect the executive against “the waste of time and the obstruction to public business caused by the inordinate pressure for place.” The other was to protect the holders of office “against intrigue and wrong.” To effect both objects, he would “at the proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor offices of several executive departments, and prescribe grounds upon which removals shall be made.” Further, he announced his purpose “to demand rigid economy in all expenditures of the Government, and to require honest and faithful service of all the executive officers, remembering that their offices were created, not for the benefit of the incumbents or their supporters, but for the service of the Government.”

These declarations did not give unmixed satisfaction to the Republican party. The anti-reform section of it, which still holds by President Jackson’s maxim, “The spoils to the victors,” regarded them as in some sense a declaration of war. It is certain that to the hopes of place-hunters they were a serious blow. For his honest desire to rid the public offices of these pests, and at the same time to purify the Government, the President was made to pay a terrible penalty. Within the railway station at Washington he was shot in the back by a man named Charles Guiteau, who for several days had been importuning the authorities at White House for place.

The useless and utterly wanton crime sent a thrill of horror through America, through England, through the civilized world. The shot did not at once prove fatal; but that only made the cruelty of the deed the more intense. For eleven weeks through the heat of summer (July 2 till September 19) the President’s life trembled in the balance. He bore his sufferings with marvellous patience and fortitude. The calamity brought out the manly strength and the simple beauty of his character with the brilliancy of sunset.

“In the reproof of chanceLies the true proof of men.”

Seldom if ever before has there been so striking an instance of misfortune raising a good man to world-wide renown. Hardly less beautiful than the President’s cheerful endurance was the heroic devotion of his wife. “It is no exaggeration to say,” said Mr. James Russell Lowell, the American Minister in London, “that the recent profoundly-touching spectacle of womanly devotedness, in its simplicity, its constancy, and its dignity, has moved the heart of mankind in a manner without any precedent in living memory.”

During the whole of these “eleven agonizing weeks” the bed of the dying President was the centre of interest to men and women of all ranks in both hemispheres. “The whole civilized world,” said Mr. Lowell, “gathered about it; and in the breathless suspense of anxious solicitude listened to the difficult breathing, counted the fluttering pulse, was cheered by the momentary rally, and saddened by the inevitable relapse.”

At length the end came with startling suddenness. It was followed by a universal wail. All humanity mourned, as if it had lost a brother. The sentiment pervaded all classes, from crowned heads to humble peasants. The Queen of England was foremost in her offers of sympathy, not only with the sorrowing widow and mother, but also with the bereaved nation; and stanch Republicans were fain to acknowledge “how true a woman’s heart may beat under the royal purple.” The English Court was ordered to go into mourning, as for one of royal blood and ancient lineage. The act was as graceful and as wise as it was unprecedented. The head of the young Republic was, by the spontaneous act of the head of the ancient Kingdom, recognized in his due place as one of the community of monarchs and princes. A hundred years ago, who could have anticipated such an event?

It would be a mistake to suppose that the death of President Garfield created the warm feelings of sympathy between England and America which the event revealed. It is true, however, that the event opened at once the hearts and the eyes of both peoples, and brought to light the depth and the strength of their brotherhood, in a way that nothing else could have done. The brotherly feelings on the part of England were heartily and even touchingly reciprocated in America. After the coffin of the deceased President had been closed, only one wreath was allowed to rest on it; and that was the wreath sent by the Queen of England. To the world this was a token of peace and good-will firmly established between England and America – of the oneness of the English-speaking race, in their common homage to President and to Queen. If the result shall be to strengthen permanently the bond between the kindred peoples – to root out jealousies and smooth over asperities, to produce generosity in the midst of rivalry and co-operation in good works – President Garfield will not have died in vain.