sections of the nation into the account, we are an illiterate nation. And under political and selfish business influences, even in the best section of the nation, there is much in our educational condition to cause shame and alarm.
But itis not the condition of public education, not the character and amount of training which the state undertakes to provide for every citizen, that is the subiect of my present inquiry and solicitude. There is another truth respecting the relations of education to the public welfare, which, if less obvious, is no less important. The destiny of any nation is dependent on the character of its aristocracy; and the character of the aristocracy is dependent upon the kind of education which this aristocracy enjoys. I know that there is something which sounds unrepublican and un-American, in our ears, about such a declaration as this. But I should undertake to show from history that the welfare of any nation is quite as really dependent upon the character of its clergy, its lawyers, its doctors, its teachers, and the classes that have leisure, social standing, and wealth as upon the character of the so-called common people. I know you will remind me that the most liberal culture will not make the so-called "upper" classes good, or furnish true friends and trusted leaders of the people. But neither does a so-called common-school education make the common people good.
