"Admitting for a moment the reality of this supposition concerning the motion of the sap, it would follow that the proper time for felling the timber would be the new moon, that being the epoch at which the descent of the sap would have been made, and the ascent not yet commenced. But can there be imagined, in the whole range of natural science, a physical relation more extraordinary and unaccountable than this supposed correspondence between the movement of the sap and the phases of the moon? Assuredly theory affords not the slightest countenance to such a supposition; but let us inquire as to the fact whether it be really the case that the quality of timber depends upon the state of the moon at the time it is felled.

"M. Duhamel Monceau, a celebrated French agriculturist, has made direct and positive experiments for the purpose of testing this question, and has clearly and conclusively shown that the qualities of timber felled in different parts of the lunar month are the same. M. Duhamel felled a great many trees of the same age, growing from the same soil, and exposed to the same aspect, and never found any difference in the quality of the timber, when he compared those which were felled in the decline of the moon with those which were felled during its increase: in general, they have afforded timber of the same quality. He adds, however, that by a circumstance which was doubtless fortuitous, a slight difference was manifested in favor of timber which had been felled between the new and full moon, contrary to popular opinion."

SUPPOSED LUNAR INFLUENCES.—It is an aphorism received by all gardeners and agriculturists in Europe, remarks the same author, that vegetables, plants, and trees, which are expected to flourish and grow with vigor, should be planted, grafted, and pruned during the increase of the moon. This opinion, however, he thinks is altogether erroneous; for the experiments and observations of several French agriculturists have clearly established the fact that the increase or decrease of the moon has no appreciable influence on the phenomena of vegetation.

This erroneous prejudice prevails also on the American continent. A French author states that, in Brazil, cultivators plant during the decline of the moon all vegetables whose roots are used as food, and that, on the contrary, they plant during the increasing moon the sugar-cane, maize, rice, beans, etc., and those which bear the food upon their stocks and branches. Experiments, however, were made and reported by M. de Chauvalon, at Martinique, on vegetables of both kinds, planted at different times in the lunar month, and no appreciable difference in their qualities was discovered.

There are some traces of a principle adopted by the South American agronomes (farmers), according to which they treat the two classes of plants distinguished by the production of fruit on their roots or on their branches differently; but there are none in the European aphorisms. The directions of Pliny are still more specific: he prescribes the time of the full moon for sowing beans, and that of the new moon for lentils. "Truly," says M. Arago, "we have need of a robust faith to admit, without proof, that the moon, at the distance of two hundred and forty thousand miles, shall, in one position, act advantageously upon the vegetation of beans, and that in the opposite position, and at the same distance, she shall be propitious to lentils."

Dr. Lardner gives numerous and extended illustrations of the supposed influence of the moon on the growth of grain, on wine-making,[38] on the color of the complexion, on putrefaction, on the size of shell-fish, on the quantity of marrow in the bones of animals, on the number of births, on mental derangement, and other human maladies, etc., etc.

[38] On this subject the prevailing opinions in different countries disagree, as they do also on some of the others.

The influence on the phenomena of human maladies imputed to the moon is very ancient. Hippocrates had so strong a faith in the influence of celestial objects upon animated beings, that he expressly recommends no physician to be trusted who is ignorant of astronomy. Galen, following Hippocrates, maintained the same opinion, especially of the influence of the moon. The critical days, or crises, were the seventh, fourteenth, and twenty-first of the disease, corresponding to the intervals between the moon's principal phases. While the doctrine of alchemists prevailed, the human body was considered as a microcosm, or an epitome of the universe, the heart representing the sun, and the brain the moon. The planets had each his proper influence: Jupiter presided over the lungs, Saturn over the spleen, Venus over the kidneys, and Mercury over the organs of generation. The term lunacy, which still designates unsoundness of mind, is a relic of these grotesque notions, and is defined by Dr. Webster as "a species of insanity or madness, formerly supposed to be influenced by the moon, or periodical in the month." But even this term may now be said, in some degree, to be banished from the nomenclature of medicine; it has, however, taken refuge in that receptacle of all antiquated absurdities of phraseology—the law—lunatic being still the term for the subject who is incapable of managing his own affairs.

Sanctorius, whose name is celebrated in physics for the invention of the thermometer, held it as a principle that a healthy man gained two pounds' weight at the beginning of every lunar month, which he lost toward its completion. This opinion appears to have been founded on experiments made upon himself, and affords another instance of a fortuitous coincidence hastily generalized.

For all the progress that has been made in this country toward the removal from the popular mind of the numerous corrupting and debasing absurdities which have hitherto enslaved it, we are indebted to our enlightened and chastened systems of popular education; and to these, and to these only, may we confidently look for entire freedom from the thraldom.

EDUCATION INCREASES THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR.

Education has a power of ministering to our personal and material wants beyond all other agencies, whether excellence of climate, spontaneity of production, mineral resources, or mines of silver and gold. Every wise parent, every wise community, desiring the prosperity of its children even in the most worldly sense, will spare no pains in giving them a generous education.—HORACE MANN.

The best educated are always the best paid.—Foreign Report.

The desirableness of education is manifest, view it in what light we may, and whether as affecting individuals or communities. We have already seen that education, and that alone, will dissipate the evils of ignorance. We now propose to discuss the equally tenable proposition that education increases the productiveness of labor.

That knowledge is power has become a proverb. If it be asked why the labor of a man is more valuable than the same amount of physical effort put forth by a brute, the ready answer is, It is because man combines intelligence with his labor. A single yoke of oxen will do more in one day at plowing than forty men; yet the oxen may be had for fifty cents a day, while each of the men can earn a dollar. Physical exertion in this case, combined with ordinary skill, is eighty times more valuable than the same amount of brute force. The strength of the ox is of no account without some one to guide and apply it, while the power of man is guided by intelligence within.

In proportion as man's intelligence increases is his labor more valuable. A small compensation is the reward of mere physical power, while skill, combined with a moderate amount of strength, commands high wages. The labor of an ignorant man is scarcely more valuable than the same amount of brute force; but the services of an intelligent, skillful person are a hundred fold more productive. I will pause and illustrate, for I wish to have every person who arises from the perusal of these pages do so with the fullest conviction that mental culture is of the highest importance even in the ordinary departments of human industry. It is, indeed, hardly less important for the man of business, the farmer, or the mechanic, than for statesmen, legislators, and members of the so-called learned professions.

An intelligent farmer of my acquaintance having a piece of greensward to break up, and having three work-horses, determined to employ them all. He hence, possessing some mechanical skill, himself constructed a three-horse whipple-tree, by means of which he advantageously combined the strength of his horses. A less intelligent neighbor, pleased with the novel appearance of three horses working abreast, resolved to try the experiment himself. But not possessing the skill requisite to construct such a whipple-tree, he waited till his better-informed and more expert neighbor had got through with his, and then, borrowing it, tried the experiment with his own team. Early one morning, and full of expectation, aided by his two sons and a hired man, he harnessed his three horses to the plow. But one of them, for the first time, refused to draw. After several fruitless attempts to make the team work as first harnessed, the relative position of the horses was changed, when, lo! although this horse would draw as formerly, one of the others would not. By and by another change was made, and the third horse, in turn, refused to draw. The farmer could not understand it, nor his sons, nor his hired man. His three horses, for the first time, were each fickle in turn. And, what was most surprising, they would all work in either of two positions, but in the third none of them would draw. The honest farmer thought the age of witchcraft had not yet passed. At the conclusion of the forenoon he gave up the undertaking in disgust, and, carrying the whipple-tree home, told the story of his unsuccessful and vexatious experiment.

"And how did you harness the horses to the whipple-tree?" inquired the more intelligent farmer. "Why, one at the short end, and two at the long end, where there is the most room for them, to be sure!" was the frank reply.

The power at the short end, I need not say, should be twice that at the long end; whereas he had it reversed. One horse drew against two with a double purchase. He then would have to draw twice as much as both of them, or four times as much as one of them. The fickleness of the horses, then, instead of being the result of witchcraft, as he was inclined to believe, was chargeable solely to the ignorance of their hardly more intelligent master. A knowledge of the first principles of mechanics, or, in the absence of this, an ordinary degree of active, available common sense, would teach the proper use of such a whipple-tree. For want of this knowledge, the farmer suffered much chagrin, lost the time of four men, and did great injury to his team.

After mentioning this circumstance on a certain occasion, a gentleman present gave a parallel case, that occurred under his immediate observation. His neighbor had a yoke of oxen, one of which was large, strong, and beautiful. One day, as the neighbor was passing the residence of the gentleman, the latter remarked to him, "You have one very fine-looking ox." "Yes," replied the neighbor, with apparent satisfaction, "and a bonny fellow he is too. He can carry the long end of the yoke, and grow fat under it." Here, again, the weaker ox had to tax his strength doubly on account of the advantage which the ignorance of his kind master had unintentionally given to his superior yoke-fellow.

A farmer, or laborer of any kind, who possesses a knowledge of the merest elements of science, and is accustomed to think and investigate, can not only work more advantageously with his team, but he can do more work himself, and do it easier too, than his neighbor of superior physical strength, though of inferior mental capacity. The correctness of this statement may be satisfactorily proved and amply illustrated in loading timber, in moving buildings, in plowing, and in almost every kind of work done on a farm or among men, either on land or at sea. The ignorant man will spend more time in running after help to do a supposed difficult job, than it will require for a skillful one to do it alone. This is true in carpentry, and in all of the mechanic arts. Increase the practical and available education of the laborer, and you enable him to do more work, and better work too, than his less informed associate. The following is a striking illustration.

A practical teacher employed some mechanics to build him a barn. The day after the frame was raised, the teacher discovered that it needed to be turned a few inches upon its foundation, to range properly with other buildings. While the mechanics went in several directions to procure what they regarded as necessary help, the teacher, who was familiar with the various combinations of the lever, effected the work alone, and before their return! Other equally striking illustrations might be cited.

But education increases the productiveness of labor in a wider and more extended sense. By its omnipotent influence, man is enabled to lay the elements under tribute. The water and the wind, by its mysterious power, are made to propel his machinery for various purposes. The utmost skill of the untutored savage enables him to construct a rude canoe which two can carry upon their shoulders by land, which is barely capable of plying upon our rivers and coasting our inland seas, and which can be propelled only by human muscles, but the educated man erects a magnificent vessel, a floating palace, and, spreading his canvas to the breeze, aided by the mariner's compass, can traverse unknown seas in safety. To such perfection has he attained in the science and art of navigation, that he contends successfully with wind and tide, and makes headway against both, even when he depends upon the former for his motive power. Yes, education enables man even to tax the gentle breeze to urge a proud ship, heavily laden, up an inclined plane, thousands of miles, against the current of a mighty river.

I can not, perhaps, so satisfactorily establish the proposition which I am now endeavoring to elucidate, nor so well maintain the universality of its application, as by referring to the writings of the most indefatigable and successful laborer in the department of popular education of which our country can boast. I refer to the Hon. Horace Mann,[39] who, a few years ago, in his official capacity, opened a correspondence, and availed himself of all opportunities to hold personal interviews with many of the most practical, sagacious, and intelligent business men in our country, who for many years had had large numbers of persons in their employment. His object was to ascertain the difference in the productive ability, where natural capacities were equal, between the educated and the uneducated; between a man or a woman whose mind has been awakened to thought, and supplied with the rudiments of knowledge by a good common school education, and one whose faculties have never been developed, or aided in emerging from their original darkness and torpor by such a privilege. For this purpose he conferred and corresponded with manufacturers of all kinds—with machinists, engineers, rail-road contractors, officers in the army, etc.; classes which have means of determining the effects of education on individuals equal in their natural abilities that other classes do not possess.

[39] Late Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Reference is here especially made to his Fifth Annual Report, bearing date January 1, 1842, from which, with his consent, what follows under this head has been substantially drawn.

A farmer hiring a laborer for one season who has received a good common school education, and the ensuing season hiring another who has not enjoyed this advantage, although he may be personally convinced of the relative value or profitableness of their services, yet he will rarely have any exact data or tests to refer to by which he can measure the superiority of the former over the latter. They do not work side by side, so that he can institute a comparison between the amounts of labor they perform. They may cultivate different fields, where the ease of tillage or the fertility of the soils may be different. They may rear crops under the influence of different seasons, so that he can not discriminate between what is referable to the bounty of nature and what to superiority in judgment or skill.

Similar difficulties exist in estimating the amount and value of female labor in the household. And as to the mechanic also—the carpenter, the mason, the blacksmith, the tool-maker of any kind—there are a thousand circumstances, which we call accidental, that mingle their influence in giving quality and durability to their work, and prevent us from making a precise estimate of the relative value of any two men's handicraft. Individual differences, too, in regard to a single article or a single days' work, may be too minute to be noticed or appreciated, while the aggregate of these differences at the end of a few years may make all the difference between a poor man and a rich one. No observing man can have failed to notice the difference between two workmen, one of whom, to use a proverbial expression, always "hits the nail on the head," while the other loses half his strength and destroys half his nails by the awkwardness of his blows; but perhaps few men have thought of the difference in the results of two such men's labor at the end of twenty years.

But when hundreds of men or women work side by side in the same factory, at the same machinery, in making the same fabrics, and, by a fixed rule of the establishment, labor the same number of hours each day; and when, also, the products of each operative can be counted in number, weighed by the pound, or measured by the yard or cubic foot, then it is perfectly practicable to determine, with arithmetical exactness, the productions of one individual and class as compared with those of another individual and class.

So, where there are different kinds of labor, some simple, others complicated, and of course requiring different degrees of intelligence and skill, it is easy to observe what class of persons rise from a lower to a higher grade of employment.

This, too, is not to be forgotten, that in a manufacturing or mechanical establishment, or among a set of hands engaged in filling up a valley or cutting down a hill, where scores of people are working together, the absurd and adventitious distinctions of society do not intrude. The capitalist and his agents are looking for the greatest amount of labor or the largest income in money from their investments, and they do not promote a dunce to a station where he will destroy raw material or slacken industry because of his name, or birth, or family connections. The obscurest and humblest person has a fair field for competition. That he proves himself capable of earning more money for his employers is a testimonial better than a diploma from all the colleges.

Now many of the most intelligent and valuable men in the community, in compliance with Mr. Mann's request, examined their books for a series of years, and ascertained both the quality and the amount of work performed by persons in their employment, and the result of the investigation is a most astonishing superiority in productive power on the part of the educated over the uneducated laborer. The hand is found to be another hand when guided by an intelligent mind. Processes are performed not only more rapidly, but better, when faculties which have been exercised in early life furnish their assistance. Individuals who, without the aid of knowledge, would have been condemned to perpetual inferiority of condition, and subjected to all the evils of want and poverty, rise to competence and independence by the uplifting power of education. In great establishments, and among large bodies of laboring men, where all services are rated according to their pecuniary value; where there are no extrinsic circumstances to bind a man down to a fixed position after he has shown a capacity to rise above it; where, indeed, men pass by each other, ascending or descending in their grades of labor just as easily and certainly as particles of water of different degrees of temperature glide by each other—under such circumstances it is found, as an almost invariable fact, other things being equal, that those who have been blessed with a good common school education rise to a higher and a higher point in the kinds of labor performed, and also in the rate of wages received, while the ignorant sink like dregs, and are always found at the bottom.

James K. Mills, Esq., of Boston, who has been connected with a house that has had for the last ten years the principal direction of cotton-mills, machine shops, and calico-printing works, in which are constantly employed about three thousand persons, and whose opinions of the effects of a common school education upon a manufacturing population are the result of personal observation and inquiries, and are confined to the testimony of the overseers and agents who are brought into immediate contact with the operatives, expresses the conviction that the rudiments of a common school education are essential to the attainment of skill and expertness as laborers, or to consideration and respect in the civil and social relations of life; that very few who have not enjoyed the advantages of a common school education ever rise above the lowest class of operatives, and that the labor of this class, when it is employed in manufacturing operations which require even a very moderate degree of manual or mental dexterity, is unproductive; that a large majority of the overseers and others employed in situations which require a high degree of skill in particular branches—which oftentimes require a good general knowledge of business, and always an unexceptionable moral character—have made their way up from the condition of common laborers, with no other advantage over a large proportion of those they have left behind than that derived from a better education.

A statement made from the books of one of the manufacturing companies will show the relative number of the two classes, and the earnings of each; and this mill, we are assured, may be taken as a fair index of all the others. The average number of operatives employed for the last three years is twelve hundred. Of this number there are forty-five unable to write their names, or about three and three fourths per cent. The average of women's wages, in the departments requiring the most skill, is two dollars and fifty cents per week, exclusive of board. The average wages of the lowest departments is one dollar and twenty-five cents per week.

Of the forty-five who are unable to write, twenty-nine, or about two thirds, are employed in the lowest department. The difference between the wages earned by the forty-five and the average wages of an equal number of the better-educated class is about twenty-seven per cent. in favor of the latter. The difference between the wages earned by twenty-nine of the lowest class and the same number in the higher is sixty-six per cent. Of seventeen persons filling the most responsible stations in the mills, ten have grown up in the establishment from common laborers or apprentices.

This statement does not include an importation of sixty-three persons from Manchester, in England, in 1839. Among these persons there was scarcely one who could read or write; and although a part of them had been accustomed to work in cotton-mills, yet, either from incapacity or idleness, they were unable to earn sufficient to pay for their subsistence, and at the expiration of a few weeks not more than half a dozen remained in the employment of the company.

In some of the print-works a large proportion of the operatives are foreigners. Those who are employed in the branches which require a considerable degree of skill are as well educated as our people in similar situations. But the common laborers, as a class, are without any education, and their average earnings are about two thirds only of those of our lowest classes, although the prices paid to each are the same for the same amount of work.

Among the men and boys employed in the machine shops, the want of education is quite rare. Mr. Mills does not know an instance of a person so employed who is unable to read and write; and many have a good common school education. To this, he thinks, may be attributed the fact that a large proportion of persons who fill the higher and more responsible situations come from this class of workmen. From these statements the reader will be able to form some estimate, in dollars and cents, at least, of the advantages of even a little education to the operative; and there is not the least doubt, says the same authority, that the employer is equally benefited. He has the security for his property that intelligence, good morals, and a just appreciation of the regulations of his establishment always afford. His machinery and mills, which constitute a large part of his capital, are in the hands of persons who, by their skill, are enabled to use them to their utmost capacity, and to prevent any unnecessary depreciation.

Each operative in a cotton-mill, according to the estimate of Mr. Mills, may be supposed to represent from one thousand to twelve hundred dollars of the capital invested in the mill and its machinery. It is only from the most diligent and economical use of this capital that the proprietor can expect a profit. A fraction less than one half of the cost of manufacturing common cotton goods when a mill is in full operation, is made up of charges which are permanent. If the product is reduced in the ratio of the capacity of the two classes of operatives mentioned in this statement, it will be seen that the cost will be increased in a compound ratio. Mr. Mills expresses the opinion "that the best cotton-mill in New England, with such operatives only as the forty-five mentioned above, who are unable to write their names, would never yield the proprietor a profit; that the machinery would be soon worn out, and he would be left, in a short time, with a population no better than that which is represented by the importation from England. I can not imagine any situation in life," he continues, "where the want of a common school education would be more severely felt, or be attended with worse consequences, than in manufacturing villages; nor, on the other hand, is there any where such advantages can be improved with greater benefit to all parties. There is more excitement and activity in the minds of people living in masses, and if this expends itself in any of the thousand vicious indulgences with which they are sure to be tempted, the road to destruction is traveled over with a speed exactly corresponding to the power employed."

H. Bartlett, Esq., of Lowell, who has been engaged ten years in manufacturing, and has had the constant charge of from four hundred to nine hundred persons during that time, has come in contact with a very great variety of character and disposition, and has seen mind applied to production in the mechanic and manufacturing arts possessing different degrees of intelligence, from gross ignorance to a high degree of cultivation, and he has no hesitation in affirming that he finds the best educated to be the most profitable help. Even those females who merely tend machinery give a result somewhat in proportion to the advantages enjoyed in early life for education, those who have a good common school education giving, as a class, invariably a better production than those brought up in ignorance.

In regard to the domestic and social habits of persons in his employ, the same gentleman adds, "I have never considered mere knowledge, valuable as it is to the laborer, as the only advantage derived from a good common school education. I have uniformly found the better educated, as a class, possessing a higher and better state of morals, more orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations of an establishment. And in times of agitation, on account of some change in regulations or wages, I have always looked to the most intelligent, best educated, and the most moral for support, and have seldom been disappointed; for, while they are the last to submit to imposition, they reason, and if your requirements are reasonable, they will generally acquiesce, and exert a salutary influence upon their associates. But the ignorant and uneducated I have generally found the most turbulent and troublesome, acting under the influence of excited passion and jealousy.

"The former appear to have an interest in sustaining good order, while the latter seem more reckless of consequences. And, to my mind, all this is perfectly natural. The better educated have more and stronger attachments binding them to the place where they are. They are generally neater in their persons, dress, and houses; surrounded with more comforts, with fewer of 'the ills flesh is heir to.' In short, I have found the educated, as a class, more cheerful and contented, devoting a portion of their leisure time to reading and intellectual pursuits, more with their families, and less in scenes of dissipation. The good effect of all this is seen in the more orderly and comfortable appearance of the whole household, but nowhere more strikingly than in the children. A mother who has a good common school education will rarely suffer her children to grow up in ignorance. As I have said, this class of persons are more quiet, more orderly, and, I may add, more regular in their attendance upon public worship, and more punctual in the performance of all their duties."

Mr. Bartlett thinks it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a young man, who has not an education equal to a good common school education, to rise from grade to grade until he should obtain the berth of an overseer, and that, in making promotions, as a general thing, it would be unnecessary to make inquiry as to the education of the young men from whom you would select. Very seldom indeed, he says, would an uneducated young man rise to "a better place and better pay. Young men who expect to resort to manufacturing establishments for employment, can not prize too highly a good education. It will give them standing among their associates, and be the means of promotion among their employers."

The final remark of this gentleman, in a lengthy letter, showing the advantages of education in a pecuniary, social, and moral point of view, is, that "those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly goods are deeply interested in this subject, as one of mere insurance; that the most effectual way of making insurance on their property would be to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and constituting it a police more effectual than peace officers and prisons." By so doing he thinks they would bestow a benefaction upon those who, from the accident of birth or parentage, are subjected to the privations and temptations of poverty, and would do much to remove the prejudice and to strengthen the bands of union between the different and extreme portions of society. He very justly regards it a wise provision of Providence which connects so intimately, and, as he thinks, so indissolubly, the greatest good of the many with the highest interest of the few; or, in other words, which unites into one brotherhood all the members of the community, and in the existing partnership connects inseparably the interests of Labor and Capital.[40]

[40] The New York Free School State Convention, held in Syracuse the 10th and 11th of July inst. (1850), unanimously adopted an Address to the People of the State, written by Horace Greeley, in which the following passage occurs, inculcating the same sentiment: "Property is deeply interested in the Education of All. There is no farm, no bank, no mill, no shop—unless it be a grog-shop—which is not more valuable and more profitable to its owner if located among a well-educated than if surrounded by an ignorant population. Simply as a matter of interest, we hold it to be the duty of Property to itself to provide Education for All."

John Clark, Esq., of Lowell, who has had under his superintendence for eight years about fifteen hundred persons of both sexes, gives concurrent testimony. He has found, with very few exceptions, the best educated among his hands to be the most capable, intelligent, energetic, industrious, economical, and moral, and that they produce the best work, and the most of it, with the least injury to the machinery. They are, in short, in all respects the most useful, profitable, and the safest operatives; and as a class, they are more thrifty, and more apt to accumulate property for themselves. "I am very sure," he remarks, "that neither men of property nor society at large have any thing to fear from a more general diffusion of knowledge, nor from the extension and improvement of our system of common schools. On our pay-roll for the last month are borne the names of twelve hundred and twenty-nine female operatives, forty of whom receipted for their pay by 'making their mark.' Twenty-six of these have been employed in job work; that is, they are paid according to the quantity of work turned off from their machines. The average pay of these twenty-six falls eighteen and one half per cent. below the general average of those engaged in the same departments.

"Again: we have in our mills about one hundred and fifty females who have at some time been engaged in teaching schools. Many of them teach during the summer months, and work in the mills in winter. The average wages of these ex-teachers I find to be seventeen and three fourths per cent. above the general average of our mills, and about forty per cent. above the twenty-six who can not write their names. It may be said they are generally employed in the higher departments, where the pay is better. This is true; but this again may be, in most cases, fairly attributed to their better education, which brings us to the same result. If I had included in my calculations the remaining fourteen of the forty, who were mostly sweepers and scrubbers, and who are paid by the day, the contrast would have been still more striking; but, having no well-educated females in this department with whom to compare them, I have omitted them altogether. In arriving at the above results, I have considered the net wages merely, the price of board being in all cases the same. I do not consider these results as either extraordinary or surprising, but as a part only of the legitimate and proper fruits of a better cultivation, and fuller development of the intellectual and moral powers."

Mr. Mann gives the entire letters from which I have so freely drawn, and also introduces into his report extracts from a letter of Jonathan Crane, Esq., who has been for many years a large rail-road contractor, and has had several thousand men in his employment. The testimony of this gentleman is corroborative of that already presented. Testimony similar to the preceding might be introduced from the proprietors and superintendents of the principal manufacturing establishments in America not only, but from every part of the civilized world. Before concluding this chapter, I shall, for another purpose, refer to statements made by extensive manufacturers in England and Switzerland.

These are no more than a fair specimen of a mass of facts which Mr. Mann obtained from the most authentic sources. They seem to prove incontestably that education is not only a moral renovator, and a multiplier of intellectual power, but that it is also the most prolific parent of material riches. It has a right, therefore, not only to be included in the grand inventory of a nation's resources, but to be placed at the very head of that inventory. It is not only the most honest and honorable, but the surest means of amassing property. Considering education, then, as a producer of wealth, it follows that the more educated a people are, the more will they abound in all those conveniences, comforts, and satisfactions which money will buy; and, other things being equal, the increase of competency and the decline of pauperism will be measurable on this scale.

EDUCATION AND AGRICULTURE.—The healthful and praiseworthy employment of agriculture requires knowledge for its successful prosecution. In this department of industry we are in perpetual contact with the forces of nature. We are constantly dependent upon them for the pecuniary returns and profits of our investments, and hence the necessity of knowing what those forces are, and under what circumstances they will operate most efficiently, and will most bountifully reward our original outlay of money and time.

Our country yields a great variety of agricultural productions, and this brings into requisition all that chemical and experimental knowledge which pertains to the rotation of crops and the enrichment of soils. If rotation be disregarded, the repeated demands upon the same soil to produce the same crop will exhaust it of the elements on which that particular crop will best thrive. If the chemical ingredients and affinities of the soil are not understood, an attempt may be made to reenforce it by substances with which it is already surcharged, instead of renovating it with those of which it has been exhausted by previous growths. But for these arrangements and adaptations knowledge is the grand desideratum, and the addition of a new fact to a farmer's mind will often increase the amount of his harvests more than the addition of acres to his estate.

Why is it that, if we except Egypt, all the remaining territory of Africa, containing nearly ten millions of square miles, with a soil most of which is incomparably more fertile by nature, produces less for the sustenance of man and beast than England, whose territory is only fifty thousand square miles? In the latter country, knowledge has been a substitute for a genial climate and an exuberant soil; while in the former, it is hardly a figurative expression to say that all the maternal kindness of nature, powerful and benignant as she is, has been repulsed by the ignorance of her children. Doubtless industry as well as knowledge is indispensable to productiveness; but knowledge must precede industry, or the latter will work to so little effect as to become discouraged, and to relapse into the slothfulness of savage life. This is illustrated by the condition of the inhabitants of Lower California, as described by an intelligent friend of the author, who left this country a year ago. He says this is a "most beautiful country, with the finest climate in the world. But its inhabitants, who are principally Spaniards and Indians, are in a state of semi-barbarism, and consequently its resources are, to a certain extent, undeveloped. The land, which is generally level and of the richest quality, is divided into ranchos or plantations, the largest of which are twenty miles square, and feed twenty or thirty thousand head of wild cattle, with horses and mules in proportion. But these are all. The arts are in the lowest state imaginable. Their houses are mere pens, without pen floors; their plows are pointed logs; their yokes are straight sticks, which they tie to the horns of their oxen; and every implement of industry shows an equal want of ingenuity and enterprise. They are too indolent to raise much grain, though the soil will yield, I am told, eighty bushels of wheat to an acre; consequently, wheat is sold to the immigrants at three dollars per bushel, while the finest beef cattle in the world bring from eight to ten dollars per head. Butter, cheese, and even milk, you can not obtain at all, for they are too lazy to tame their cows. A few Americans, who own large ranchos, have American plows, and are doing better than the rest. Many ranchos have been abandoned, and their owners have gone to the mines. This state of things the energetic Anglo-Saxon will soon change. The immigration for the next few years will be immense, and the whole community will yield to American customs. The large ranchos will be cut up into farms, and their products will supply the wants of a dense population. Property will rapidly change hands, and it will be easy for the shrewd Yankee to reap the benefit of the change."

But, without further exposition, it may be remarked generally, that the spread of intelligence, through the instrumentality of good books, and the cultivation in our children of the faculties of observing, comparing, and reasoning, through the medium of good schools, would add millions to the agricultural products of nearly every state of the Union, without imposing upon the husbandman an additional hour of labor.

EDUCATION AND THE USEFUL ARTS.—For the successful prosecution among us of the manufacturing and mechanic arts, if not for their very existence, there must be not only the exactness of science, but also exactness or skill in the application of scientific principles throughout the whole processes, either of constructing machinery, or of transforming raw materials into finished fabrics. This ability to make exact and skillful applications of science to an unlimited variety of materials, and especially to the subtile but most energetic agencies of nature, is one of the latest attainments of the human mind. It is remarkable that astronomy, sculpture, painting, poetry, oratory, and even ethical philosophy, had made great progress thousands of years before the era of the manufacturing and mechanic arts. This era, indeed, has but just commenced; and already the abundance, and, what is of far greater importance, the universality of the personal, domestic, and social comforts it has created, constitute one of the most important epochs in the history of civilization.

The cultivation of these arts is conferring a thousand daily accommodations and pleasures upon the laborer in his cottage, which, only two or three centuries ago, were luxuries in the palace of the monarch. Through circumstances incident to the introduction of all economical improvements, there has hitherto been great inequality in the distribution of their advantages; but their general tendency is greatly to ameliorate the condition of the mass of mankind. It has been estimated that the products of machinery in Great Britain, with a population of eighteen millions, is equal to the labor of hundreds of millions of human hands. This vast gain is effected without the conquest or partitioning of the territory of any neighboring nation, and without rapine or the confiscation of property already accumulated by others. It is an absolute creation of wealth—that is, of those articles, commodities, and improvements which we appraise and set down as of a certain moneyed value alike in the inventory of a deceased man's estate and in the grand valuation of a nation's capital. These contributions to human welfare have been derived from knowledge; from knowing how to employ those natural agencies which from the beginning of the race had existed, but had lain dormant or run uselessly away. For mechanical purposes, what is wind, or water, or the force of steam worth, until the ingenuity of man comes in, and places the wind-wheel, the water-wheel, or the piston between these mighty agents and the work he wishes them to perform? But after the intervention of machinery, how powerful they become for all purposes of utility! In a word, these great improvements, which distinguish our age from all preceding ages, have been obtained from Nature by addressing her in the language of Science and Art, the only language she understands, yet one of such all-pervading efficacy that she never refuses to comply to the letter with all petitions for wealth or physical power, if they are preferred to her in that dialect.

Now it is easy to show, from reasoning, from history, and from experience, that an early awakening of the mind is a prerequisite to success in the useful arts. But it must be an awakening to thought, not to feeling merely. In the first place, a clearness of perception must be acquired, or the power of taking a correct mental transcript, copy, or image of whatever is seen This, however, though indispensable, is by no means sufficient.

The talent of improving upon the labors of others requires not only the capability of receiving an exact mental copy or imprint of all the objects of sense or reasoning; it also requires the power of reviving or reproducing at will all the impressions or ideas before obtained, and the power of changing their collocations, of re-arranging them into new forms, and of adding something to or removing something from the original perceptions, in order to make a more perfect plan or model. If a ship-wright, for instance, would improve upon all existing specimens of naval architecture, he would first examine as great a number of ships as possible; this done, he would revive the image which each had imprinted upon his mind, and, with all the fleets which he had inspected present to his imagination, he would compare each individual vessel with all others, make a selection of one part from one, and of another part from another, apply his own knowledge of the laws of moving and of resisting forces to all, and thus create, in his own mind, the complex idea or model of a ship more perfect than any of those he had seen.

Now every recitation in a school, if rightly conducted, is a step toward the attainment of this wonderful power. With a course of studies judiciously arranged and diligently pursued through the years of minority, all the great phenomena of external nature, and the most important productions in all the useful arts, together with the principles on which they are evolved or fashioned, would be successively brought before the understanding of the pupil. He would thus become familiar with the substances of the material world, and with their manifold properties and uses; and he would learn the laws, comparatively few, by which results infinitely diversified are produced. When such a student goes out into life, he carries, as it were, a plan or model of the world in his own mind. He can not, therefore, pass, either blindly or with the stupid gaze of the brute creation, by the great objects and processes of nature; but he has an intelligent discernment of their several existences and relations, and their adaptation to the uses of mankind. Neither can he fasten his eye upon any workmanship or contrivance of man without asking two questions: first, How is it? and, secondly, How can it be improved?

Hence it is that all the processes of nature and the contrivances of art are so many lessons or communications to an instructed man; but an uninstructed one walks in the midst of them like a blind man among colors, or a deaf man among sounds. The Romans carried their aqueducts from hill-top to hill-top, on lofty arches erected at immense expenditure of time and money. One idea—that is, a knowledge of the law of the equilibrium of fluids; a knowledge of the fact that water in a tube will rise to the level of the fountain—would have enabled a single individual to do with ease what, without that knowledge, it required the wealth of an empire to accomplish.

It is in ways similar to this—that is, by accomplishing greater results with less means; by creating products at once cheaper, better, and by more expeditious methods; and by doing a vast variety of things otherwise impossible—that the cultivation of mind may be truly said to yield the highest pecuniary requital.

Intelligence is the great money-maker, not by extortion, but by PRODUCTION. There are ten thousand things in every department of life which, if done in season, can be done in a minute, but which, if not seasonably done, will require hours, perhaps days or weeks for their performance. An awakened mind will see and seize the critical juncture; the perceptions of the sluggish one will come too late, if they come at all.

A general culture of the faculties, also, gives versatility of talent, so that, if the customary business of the laborer is superseded by improvements, he can readily betake himself to another kind of employment. But an uncultivated mind is like an automaton, which can do only the thing for which its wheels or springs were made. Brute force expends itself unproductively. It is ignorant of the manner in which Nature works, and hence it can not avail itself of her mighty agencies. Often, indeed, it attempts to oppose Nature. It throws itself across the track where her resistless car is moving. But knowledge enables its possessor to employ her agencies in his own service, and he thereby obtains an amount of power, without fee or reward, which thousands of slaves could not give.

Every man who consumes a single article in whose production or transportation the power of steam is used, has it delivered to him cheaper than he could otherwise have obtained it. Every man who can avail himself of this power in traveling, can perform the business of three days in one, and so far add two hundred per cent. to the length of his life as a business man. What innumerable millions has the invention of the cotton-gin, by Whitney, added, and will continue to add, to the wealth of the world! a part of which is already realized, but vastly the greater part of which is yet to be received, as each successive day draws for an installment which would exhaust the treasury of a nation. The instructed and talented man enters the rich domains of Nature not as an intruder, but, as it were, a PROPRIETOR, and makes her riches his own.

Why is it that, so far as the United States are concerned, four fifths of all the improvements, inventions, and discoveries in regard to machinery, to agricultural implements, to superior models in ship-building, and to the manufacture of those refined instruments on which accuracy in scientific observations depends, have originated in New England? I believe no adequate reason can be assigned but the early awakening and training of the power of thought in her children. Improvements, inventions, and discoveries have been made in other states of the Union to an extent commensurate with the progress they have made in perfecting their systems of public instruction, and these improvements will ever keep pace with the attentions which a people bestow upon their common schools.

Mr. Mann remarks that, in conversing with a gentleman who had possessed most extensive opportunities for acquaintance with men of different countries and of all degrees of intellectual development, he observed that he could employ a common immigrant or a slave, and, if he chose, could direct him to shovel a heap of sand from one spot to another, and then back into its former place, and so to and fro through the day; but, added he, neither love nor money would prevail on a New Englander to prosecute a piece of work of which he did not see the utility.

There is scarcely any kind of labor, however simple, pertaining to the farm, to the work-shop, or to domestic employments, and whether performed by male or female, which can be so well done without knowledge in the workman or domestic as with it. It is impossible for an overseer or employer at all times to supply mind to the laborer. In giving directions for the shortest series or train of operations, something will be omitted or misunderstood; and without intelligence in the workman, the omission or mistake will be repeated in the execution.

It is a fact of universal notoriety, that the manufacturing population of England, as a class, work for half, or less than half the wages of our own. The cost of machinery there, also, is about half as much as the cost of the same articles with us; while our capital, when loaned, produces nearly double the rate of English interest; yet against these grand adverse circumstances our manufacturers, with a small per centage of tariff, successfully compete with English capitalists in many branches of manufacturing business. No explanation can be given of this extraordinary fact which does not take into the account the difference of education between the operatives in the two countries.

One of our most careful and successful manufacturers remarks that, on substituting in one of his cotton-mills a better for a poorer educated class of operatives, he was enabled to add twelve or fifteen per cent. to the speed of his machinery, without any increase of damage or danger from the acceleration. How direct and demonstrative the bearing which facts like this have upon the wisdom of our laws respecting the education of children in manufacturing establishments.[41]

[41] In Connecticut the statutes provide "that no child under the age of fifteen years shall be employed to labor in any manufacturing establishment, or in any other business in the state, unless such child shall have attended some public or private day school where instruction is given by a teacher qualified to instruct in orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, at least three months of the twelve months next preceding any and every year in which such child shall be so employed. And the owner, agent, or superintendent of any manufacturing establishment who shall employ any child in such establishment contrary to the provisions of this act, shall forfeit and pay for each offense a penalty of twenty-five dollars to the treasurer of the state." In Massachusetts the forfeiture is fifty dollars. Similar provisions exist in other American, and in several European states.

The number of females in the State of Massachusetts engaged in the various manufactures of cotton, straw-platting, etc., has been estimated at forty thousand, and the annual value of their labor at one hundred dollars each on an average, or four millions of dollars for the whole. From the facts stated in the letters of Messrs. Mills and Clark above cited, it appears there is a difference of not less than fifty per cent. between the earnings of the least educated and of the best educated operatives—between those who make their marks instead of writing their names, and those who have been acceptably employed in school-keeping. Now suppose the whole forty thousand females engaged in the various kinds of manufactures in that commonwealth to be degraded to the level of the lowest class, it would follow that their aggregate earnings would fall at once to two millions of dollars. But, on the other hand, suppose them all to be elevated by mental cultivation to the rank of the highest, and their earnings would rise to the sum of six millions of dollars annually.

There can be no doubt but that education, or the want of it, affects the pecuniary value of female labor in the ordinary domestic employments of the sex not less than in manufactures. If, then, the females of the thirty states of the Union be estimated at eight millions—and the number sustaining the relations of daughters, wives, and mothers must exceed the supposition—the effect of giving them all an education equal to the best would at once raise their earnings, annually, two hundred millions of dollars! But this is the lowest sense in which we can estimate the value of education, even in the sterner sex. This sum, vast as it may seem, is as dross to gold when compared with the refining and elevating influence which eight millions of educated females would exert upon the domestic and social institutions of our country, in uplifting our national character and improving the condition of the race.

Not more than thirty years ago it was uncommon for a glazier's apprentice, even after having served an apprenticeship of seven years, to be able to cut glass with a diamond without spending much time and destroying much of the glass upon which he worked. But the invention of a simple tool has put it into the power of the merest tyro in the trade to cut glass with facility, and without loss. A man who had a mind, as well as fingers, observed that there was one direction in which the diamond was almost incapable of abrasion or wearing by use. The tool not only steadies the diamond, but fastens it in that direction.

The operation of tanning leather consists in exposing a hide to the action of a chemical ingredient, called tannin, for a length of time sufficient to allow every particle of the hide to become saturated with the solution. In making the best leather, the hides used to lay in the pit for six, twelve, or eighteen months, and sometimes for two years, the tanner being obliged to wait all this time for a return of his capital. By the modern process, the hides are placed in a close pit, with a solution of the tannin matter, and the air being exhausted, the liquid penetrates through every pore and fiber of the skin, and the whole process is completed in a few days.

The bleaching of cloth, which used to be effected in the open air, and in exposed situations where temptation to theft was offered, and in England hundreds and probably thousands of men have yielded and forfeited their lives, is now performed in an unexposed situation, and in a manner so expeditious, that cloth is bleached as much more rapidly than it formerly was as hides are tanned.

It is stated by Lord Brougham, in his beautiful Discourse on the Advantages of Science, that the inventor of the new mode of refining sugar made more money in a shorter time, and with less risk and trouble, than perhaps was ever realized from any previous invention.

Intelligence also prevents loss as well as makes profits. How much time and money have been squandered in repeated attempts to invent machinery, after a principle had been once tested and had failed through some defect inherent and natural, and therefore insuperable! Within thirty years not less than five patents have been taken out, in England and the United States, for a certain construction of paddle-wheels for a steamboat, which construction was tested and condemned as early as 1810.[42] A case once came within my own knowledge, says Mr. Mann, of a person who spent a fortune in mining for coal, when a work on geology, which would have cost but a dollar, and might have been read in a week, would have informed him that the stratum where he began to excavate belonged to a formation lower down in the natural series than coal ever is, or, according to the constitution of things, ever can be found. He therefore worked into a stratum which must have been formed before a particle of coal, or even a tree, or a vegetable existed on the planet. Numerous similar and equally striking illustrations might be cited, but this is not necessary.

[42] This statement was made eight years ago. More such patents may have been taken out within this time.

These are a few specimens, on familiar subjects, taken almost at random, for the purpose of showing the inherent superiority of any association or community, whether small or great, where mind is a member of the partnership. What is true of the above-mentioned cases is true of the whole circle of those arts by which human life is sustained and human existence comforted, elevated, and embellished. Mind has been the improver, for matter can not improve itself, and improvement has advanced in proportion to the number and culture of the minds excited to activity and applied to the work.

Similar advancements have been effected throughout the whole compass of human labor and research; in the arts of Transportation and Locomotion, from the employment of the sheep and the goat as beasts of burden, to the steam-engine and the rail-road car; in the art of Navigation, from the canoe clinging timidly to the shore, to steam-ships which boldly traverse the ocean; in Hydraulics, from carrying water by hand in a vessel or in horizontal aqueducts, to those vast conduits which supply the demands of a city, and to steam fire-engines which throw a column of water to the top of the loftiest buildings; in the arts of Spinning and Rope-making, from the hand distaff to the spinning-frame, and to the machine which makes cordage or cables of any length, in a space ten feet square; in Horology or Time-keeping, from the sun-dial and the water-clock to the watch, and to the chronometer, by which the mariner is assisted in measuring his longitude, and in saving property and life; in the extraction, forging, and tempering of Iron and other ores having malleability to be wrought into all forms and used for all purposes, and supplying, instead of the stone hatchet or the fish-shell of the savage, an almost infinite variety of instruments, which have sharpness for cutting or solidity for striking; in the art of Vitrification or Glass-making, giving not only a multitude of commodious and ornamental utensils for the household, but substituting the window for the unsightly orifice or open casement, and winnowing light and warmth from the outward and the cold atmosphere; in the arts of Induration by Heat, from bricks dried in the sun to those which withstand the corrosion of our climate for centuries or resist the intensity of the furnace; in the arts of Illumination, from the torch cut from the fir or pine tree to the brilliant gas-light which gives almost a solar splendor to the nocturnal darkness of our cities; in the arts of Heating and Ventilation, which at once supply warmth for comfort and pure air for health; in the art of Building, from the hollowed trunk of a tree or the roof-shaped cabin, to those commodious and lightsome dwellings which betoken the taste and competence of our villages and cities; in the art of Copying or Printing, from the toilsome process of hand-copying, where the transcription of a single book was the labor of months or years, and sometimes almost of a life, to the power printing-press, which throws off sixty printed sheets in a minute; in the art of Paper-making, from the preparation of the inner bark of a tree, cleft off and dried at immense labor, to machinery from which there jets out an unbroken stream of paper with the velocity and continuousness of a current of water; in the art of Painting, from the use of the crayon, and artificial colors imperfectly blended, requiring whole days to present an incomplete picture, to the production, as by enchantment, of perfect likenesses in nature's own penciling, executed in a few seconds; in the art of Telegraphing, from communicating information by signs which may be seen from one station to another, to conveying intelligence to any given distance with the velocity of lightning; and, in addition to all these, in the arts of Moulding and Casting, of Designing and Engraving, of Preserving materials and of Changing their color, of Dividing and Uniting them, etc., etc., an ample catalogue, whose very names and processes would fill volumes.

Now, for the perfecting of all these operations, from the tedious and bungling process to the rapid and elegant; for the change of an almost infinite variety of crude and worthless materials into useful and beautiful fabrics, mind has been the agent. Succeeding generations have outstripped their predecessors just in proportion to the superiority of their mental cultivation. When we compare different people or different generations with each other, the diversity is so great that all must behold it. But there is the same kind of difference between contemporaries, fellow-townsmen, and fellow-laborers. Though the uninstructed man works side by side with the intelligent, yet the mental difference between them places them in the same relation to each other that a past age bears to the present. If the ignorant man knows no more respecting any particular art or branch of business than was generally known during the last century, he belongs to the last century, and he must consent to be outstripped by those who have the light and knowledge of the present. Though they are engaged in the same kind of work, though they are supplied with the same tools or implements for carrying it on, yet, so long as one has only an arm, but the other has an arm and a MIND, their products will come out stamped and labeled all over with marks of contrast; inferiority and superiority, both as to quantity and quality, will be legibly written on their respective labors.

It is related by travelers among savage tribes that when, by the aid of an ingeniously devised instrument or apparatus, they have performed some skillful manual operation, the savages have purloined from them the instrument they had used, supposing there was some magic in the apparatus itself, by which the seeming miracle had been performed; but, as they could not steal the art of the operator with the instrument which he employed, the theft was fruitless. Any person who expects to effect with less education what another is enabled to do with more, ought not to smile at the delusion of the savage or the simplicity of his reasoning.

On a cursory inspection of the great works of art—the steam-engine, the printing-press, the power-loom, the mill, the iron foundery, the ship, the telescope, etc., etc.—we are apt to look upon them as having sprung into sudden existence, and reached their present state of perfection by one, or, at most, by a few mighty efforts of creative genius. We do not reflect that they have required the lapse of centuries and the successive application of thousands of minds for the attainment of their present excellence; that they have advanced from a less to a more perfect form by steps and gradations almost as imperceptible as the growth by which an infant expands to the stature of a man; and that, as later discoverers and inventors had first to go over the ground of their predecessors, so must future discoverers and inventors first master the attainments of the present age before they will be prepared to make those new achievements which are to carry still further onward the stupendous work of improvement.

EDUCATION DIMINISHES PAUPERISM AND CRIME.

Education is to be regarded as one of the most important means of eradicating the germs of pauperism from the rising generation, and of securing in the minds and in the morals of the people the best protection for the institutions of society.—DR. JAMES PHILLIPS KAY, Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner, and Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education.[43]

The different countries of the world, if arranged according to the state of education in them, will be found to be arranged also according to WEALTH, MORALS, and GENERAL HAPPINESS; at the same time, THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE, AND THE EXTENT OF CRIME AND VIOLENCE AMONG THEM, FOLLOW A LIKE ORDER.—NATIONAL EDUCATION, by Fred. Hill, London.

That education increases the productiveness of labor has been already conclusively established. It has also been incidentally shown that mere knowledge, valuable as it is to the laborer, is not the only advantage derived from a good common school education, but that the better educated, as a class, possess a higher and better state of morals, and are more orderly and respectful in their deportment than the uninstructed; and that for those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly goods, the most effectual way of making insurance on their property would be, to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and constituting it a police more effective than peace officers or prisons. If, then, poverty is at once a cause and an effect of crime, as is stated by a late writer,[44] who has made an extended survey of the relative state of instruction and social welfare in the leading nations of the world, it is directly inferable that education will, and, from the nature of the case, must act in a compound ratio in diminishing both pauperism and crime.

[43] Quoted from the Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the Training of Pauper Children, London, 1841.

[44] Fred. Hill, author of National Education, whose testimony is quoted at the head of this article.

This proposition is not received by a few individuals merely in comparatively unimportant communities: it is one which is generally adopted by enlightened practical educators and by liberal-minded capitalists of both hemispheres. The views of several of our principal American manufacturers have been already presented. Let us now direct our attention to the testimony of enlightened and liberal-minded capitalists residing in some of the transatlantic states.

William Fairbrain, Esq., the sole proprietor of a manufactory in Manchester, and part owner of another establishment in London, and who has between eleven and twelve hundred persons in his employ, remarks in relation to the habits of the educated and uneducated as follows: There is no doubt that the educated are more sober and less dissipated than the uneducated. During the hours of recreation, the younger portion of the educated workmen indulge more in reading and mental pleasures; they attend more at reading-rooms, and avail themselves of the facilities afforded by libraries, by scientific lectures, and by lyceums. The older of the more educated workmen spend their time chiefly with their families, reading and walking out with them. The time of the uneducated classes is spent very differently, and chiefly in the grosser sensual indulgences. Mr. Fairbrain has given his own time as president of a lyceum for the use of the working classes, which furnishes the means of instruction in arithmetic, mathematics, drawing, and mensuration, and by lectures. In these institutions liberal provision is very properly made, not only for the occupation of the leisure hours of the laborers themselves, and for their intellectual and social improvement, but for that of their wives and families, in order "to make the home comfortable, and to minister to the household recreation and amusement: this is a point of view in which the education of the wives of laboring men is really of very great importance, that they may be rational companions for men."[45]

[45] See evidence taken by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., Secretary to the Poor-Law Commissioners, a quotation from whose report heads this article.

Albert G. Escher, Esq., one of the firm of Escher, Wyss, and Co., of Zurich, Switzerland, remarks as follows: We employ from six to eight hundred men in our machine-making establishment at Zurich: we also employ about two hundred men in our cotton-mills there, and about five hundred men in our cotton manufactories in the Tyrol and in Italy. I have occasionally had the control of from five to six hundred men engaged in engineering operations as builders, masons, etc., and men of the class called navigators in England.

After giving a list of the different countries from which his laborers are drawn, classifying the workmen of various nations "in respect to such natural intelligence as may be distinguished from any intelligence imparted by the labors of the schoolmaster," and remarking in relation to the influence of education upon the value of labor—where his testimony corroborates that of manufacturers in New England, already quoted—the same gentleman makes a statement which is applicable to the subject under consideration.

"The better educated workmen, we find, are distinguished by superior moral habits in every respect. In the first place, they are entirely sober; they are discreet in their enjoyments, which are of a more rational and refined kind; they are more refined themselves, and they have a taste for much better society, which they approach respectfully, and consequently find much readier admittance to it; they cultivate music; they read; they enjoy the pleasures of scenery, and make parties for excursions into the country; they are economical, and their economy extends beyond their own purse to the stock of their master; they are consequently honest and trustworthy."

Scotland affords a very striking illustration of the power of education in diminishing pauperism and crime, and in improving the morals and increasing the wealth of a country. Indeed, it would be difficult to find another instance in the history of nations of a country which has made such rapid progress in the diminution of crime, the increase of public wealth, and the diffusion of comforts, as Scotland. And this gratifying change—this remarkable instance of progress in the scale of being, has been concurrent with increased and increasing attention to the education of the people.

At the beginning of the last century, Scotland swarmed with gipsies and other vagabonds, who lived chiefly by stealing, and who often committed violent robberies and murders. Of these pests to society it was estimated that there were not less than two hundred thousand. Besides these, there were the more gentlemanly, though less tolerable robbers, such as the notorious Rob Roy, who made no more ado about seizing another man's cattle than a grazier does of driving from market a drove of oxen for which he has paid every shilling demanded.

But now, the laying aside of a sum sufficient for the education of his children is an object which a Scotchman seldom loses sight of, both when he thinks of marrying and settling in life, and at every future period; and it is to this habit, handed down from father to son, that the Scotch owe their morality. One of their own writers says, "we have scarcely any rural population who are not perfectly aware of the importance of education, and not willing to make sacrifices to secure it to their children."

Having seen something of the excellence of education in improving the social and moral habits of a community, and in banishing pauperism and crime from among those who become the happy subjects of its uplifting power, let us, for the purpose of becoming more alive to its importance, consider the condition of a people where the masses are not brought under its benign influence.

Spain, which has been already referred to in illustration of the evils of ignorance, affords a striking illustration for our present purpose. Until after the lapse of one third of the present century, there was but ONE newspaper published in this country! "Yes, one miserable government gazette was the sole channel through which twelve or fourteen millions of people, spread over a vast territory, were to be supplied with information on the momentous affairs of their own country, and of the whole external world."—National Education, vol. ii., p. 136.

"The most authentic return of the number of children receiving education in Spain was made in the year 1803, and it is believed that but little change has taken place since that time. According to the returns, the number of children receiving education, exclusive of those brought up in convents and monasteries, was only one in every three hundred and forty-six of the population! M. Jonnes estimates the population at about fourteen millions and a half, and assuming, as he does, that about the same fraction of the population is receiving education as in 1803, he estimates the present number of children in school in the whole of Spain at not more than about forty-three thousand; and, pursuing his calculations, he shows that, if his data be correct, not more than one child in thirty-five ever goes to school. He further states that the children thus favored are exclusively from the middle and upper classes."[46]—National Education, vol. ii., p. 130-1.

[46] The writer would here remark, in reference to extracts made from various authors, that, for the sake of abridging, he has often, as in this case, left out parts of a paragraph, but never so as to modify the meaning. Some ideas, not connected with the subject in hand, are omitted, but none are changed.

How far the education given to the favored few is of a practical and useful kind, may be conjectured from the following extract from M. Jonnes's work. After speaking of the many libraries, schools, colleges, and universities, the creation of past times, but which still exist, he remarks, that "these institutions were intended for a state of society which had nothing in common with that of the present day. The kind of instruction afforded in them, confined as it is to prayer, church discipline, and the dogmas of theology, has no connection with the interests and wants of the existing generation.

"What every enlightened man in Spain has long called for is a national, popular, gratuitous education, extending to all classes, as well in the towns as in the rural districts. Up to the present time, the people have received no other instruction than that offered by the clergy, which has had scarcely any other object than the performance of religious ceremonies."

In addition to what has been already stated, it may be remarked, that even with those who know how to read, "books and study are almost out of the question, because, unless in the principal cities, public libraries are nowhere to be found, and private libraries are luxuries that few possess."

If education is conducive to virtue, and ignorance fosters crime, what must be the social and moral state of a country in which ignorance is so prevalent! "The amount of crime in Spain is appalling. We have before us a return of convictions for the year 1826, from which we shall make some extracts. Our reason for taking this year is simply because we are unable to procure any return for a later one. The number of convictions for murder in England and Wales in the year 1826 was thirteen, and the number convicted of wounding, etc., with intent to kill, was fourteen. These numbers are lamentably large. That the horrible crime of murder should ever be perpetrated is a most melancholy fact; and that so many as thirteen murders should be committed in one year must fill the mind of every moral man and lover of his country with grief and shame. But great as this number is absolutely, it sinks into insignificance when compared with the number of murders perpetrated in Spain; for in that unhappy country, in the single year of 1826, the number of convictions for murder reached the frightful height of TWELVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE! in addition to which, there were seventeen hundred and seventy-three convictions on charges of maiming with intent to kill, and sixteen hundred and twenty persons were convicted of robbery under aggravated circumstances. We doubt not for an instant THIS MASS OF CRIME IS THE OFFSPRING OF IGNORANCE."—National Education, vol. ii., p. 144.

It has been well remarked that the truest proofs of a good government are just laws, and that the best evidence of a well-organized government is to be found in the strict execution of these laws. "Judging the Spanish government by these tests, it will appear the worst and weakest government that ever held together. Justice of no kind has any existence; there is the most lamentable insecurity of person and property; redress is never certain, because both judgment and the execution of the laws are left to men so inadequately paid that they must depend for their subsistence upon bribery. Nothing is so difficult as to bring a man to trial who has any thing in his purse, except to bring him to execution: this, unless in Madrid and Catalonia, is impossible, for money will always buy indemnity.

"I can state, upon certain information received in Madrid, that the principal Spanish diligences pay black mail to the banditti for their protection. This arrangement was at first entered into with some difficulty; and from a gentleman who was present at the interview between the person employed to negotiate on behalf of the diligences and the representative of the banditti, I learned a few particulars. The diligences in question were those between Madrid and Seville, and the sum offered for their protection was not objected to, but another difficulty was started. 'I have nothing to say against the terms you offer,' said the negotiator for the banditti, 'and I will at once insure you against being molested by robbers of consequence! but as for the small fry, I can not be responsible! we respect the engagements entered into by each other, but there is nothing like honor among the petty thieves.' The proprietors of the diligences, however, were satisfied with the assurance of protection against the great robbers, and the treaty was concluded; but not long afterward one of the coaches was stopped and rifled by the petty thieves: this led to an arrangement which has ever since proved effectual; one of the chiefs accompanies the coach on its journey, and overawes, by his name and reputation, the robbers of inferior degree."—Spain in 1830, vol. i., p. 2.

A volume might be filled with similar testimony, showing the great insecurity of person and property in various parts of this unhappy country. Even "a woman who dares prosecute the murderer of her husband speedily receives a private intimation that effectually silences her; and it has not been uncommon for money to be put into the hands of an escrivano[47] previous to the commission of a murder, in order to insure the services and protection of a person so necessary to one who meditates crime."

[47] The escrivanos, who figure so largely in Spain, are the representatives of the lowest class of attorneys. Nothing can be done without them, and they are not unfrequently almost the sole authority in a place capable of reading and writing. Notwithstanding the miserable state of the rural districts, they contrive to make money, and many of them rise from this humble office to much higher places in the state. Their wretched appointments are, consequently, objects of competition. I witnessed the execution of one at Seville by accidentally entering the Plaza, where the Capuchins were bawling out the last words for his repetition, announcing to the crowd that they had done their duty, and he died in the true faith. He had been superseded in some village in the vicinity, and assassinated his rival.—Cook's Sketches in Spain, vol. i., p. 197.

Spain abounds in poverty. Ignorance conduces to crime, which, as we have seen, is at once a cause and an effect of poverty. In view of what has already been said of the ignorance and immorality of the Spaniards, one would readily enough infer that poverty exists among them to a deplorable extent, and it is even so. In this country "every thing, indeed, appears to have conspired to paralyze industry, and to render of no avail the natural fertility of the soil. The havoc of war; the plunder committed by organized and powerful bodies of robbers; the rapacity of government and of its army of officers; the exclusion of foreign goods, and the consequent shutting up of the foreign market; the ignorance of the people as to the best modes of agriculture; and, last of all, the want of capital—all these combine to produce squalid poverty in a land which ought to," and, with a good system of popular education, most assuredly would, "ABOUND IN WEALTH."

Scotland and Spain have been referred to, not to bring out a few facts in history merely, but to illustrate an important truth. Where a good system of popular education is well administered in a country, and, as a consequence, intelligence, industry, and morality become universal among its citizens, they will eventually become a wealthy, and a highly-prosperous and happy community, even though they derive their subsistence from a naturally unfruitful soil; but, on the contrary, where popular education is neglected in a commonwealth, and its future citizens, as a consequence, grow up in ignorance, idleness, and vice, squalid poverty and flagrant crime will become prevalent throughout a wretched and degenerate community, that is scarcely able to gain a mere subsistence from a naturally productive soil.

In further confirmation of the truth of the proposition that education diminishes crime, I will introduce the following statistics, gleaned from various official documents respecting prisons. According to returns to the British Parliament, the commitments for crimes in an average of nine years in proportion to population are as follows: In Manchester, the most infidel city in the nation, 1 in 140; in London, 1 in 800; in all Ireland, 1 in 1600; and in Scotland, celebrated for learning and religion, 1 in 20,000!

The Rev. Dr. Forde, for many years the Ordinate of Newgate, London, represents ignorance as the first great cause, and idleness as the second, of all the crimes committed by the inmates of that celebrated prison. Sir Richard Phillips, sheriff of London, says that, on the memorial addressed to the sheriffs by 152 criminals in the same institution, 25 only signed their names in a fair hand, 26 in an illegible scrawl, and that 101, two thirds of the entire number, were marksmen, signing with a cross. Few of the prisoners could read with facility; more than half of them could not read at all; the most of them thought books were useless, and were totally ignorant of the nature, object, and end of religion.

The Rev. Mr. Clay, chaplain to the House of Correction in Lancashire, represents that out of 1129 persons committed, 554 could not read; 222 were barely capable of reading; 38 only could read well; and only 8, or 1 in 141, could read and write well. One half of the 1129 prisoners were quite ignorant of the simplest truths; 37 of these, 1 in 20 of the entire number, were occasional readers of the Bible; and only one out of this large number was familiar with the Holy Scriptures and conversant with the principles of religion. Among the 516 represented as entirely ignorant, 125 were incapable of repeating the Lord's Prayer.

In the New York State Prisons, as examined a few years ago, more than three fourths of the convicts had either received no education or a very imperfect one. Out of 842 at Sing Sing, 289 could not read or write, and only 42—less than 1 in 20—had received a good common school education. Auburn prison presents similar statistics. Out of 228 prisoners, only 59 could read, write, and cipher, and 60 could do neither.

The chaplain of the Ohio penitentiary remarks that not only in the prison of that state, but in others, depraved appetites and corrupt habits, which have led to the commission of crime, are usually found with the ignorant, uninformed, and duller part of mankind. Of 276 at one time in that institution, nearly all were below mediocrity, and 175 are represented as grossly ignorant, and, in point of education, scarcely capable of transacting the ordinary business of life.

The preceding, it is believed, is no more than a fair specimen of the criminal statistics of this country and of the civilized world. I will conclude this dark catalogue by introducing a statement in relation to education and crime in a state which, according to the last general census, contained fewer persons in proportion to the whole population who were unable to read and write than any other state in the Union. From this statement it appears that as a people become more generally intelligent and moral, a greater proportion of their criminals will be found among the ignorant and neglected classes.

The chaplain of the Connecticut State Prison states that, out of 190 prisoners, not one was liberally educated, or a member of either of the learned professions. Of the whole number, 109 were natives of Connecticut; and of these, many of them could not understand the plainest sentences which they read, and their moral culture had been more neglected than their intellectual. From the investigations of this officer, it appears that out of every 100 prisoners only two could be found who could read, write, and were temperate, and only four who could read, write, and followed any regular trade.

It is evident, then, that while education increases the wealth and general happiness of a community, the want of it will reduce a people to a state of poverty and wretchedness; or, to repeat a sentiment placed at the head of this article, the different countries of the world, if arranged according to the state of education in them, will be found to be arranged also according to wealth, morals, and general happiness; at the same time, the condition of the people, and the extent of crime and violence among them, follow a like order.

I might appropriately add under this head that a proper attention to the subject of education would greatly diminish the number of fatal accidents; that it would save many lives, prevent much of idiocy and insanity, and a multitude of evils that ordinarily result from ignorance of the organic laws.

FATAL ACCIDENTS.—He who understands the laws of motion knows that a man jumping from a carriage at speed is in great danger of falling after his feet reach the ground, for his body has the same forward velocity as if he had been running with the speed of the carriage, and unless he continues to advance his feet as in running to support his advancing body, he must as certainly be dashed to the ground as a runner whose feet are suddenly arrested. If, then, there is danger in leaping from a carriage in motion, how much greater is the hazard in jumping from a rail-road car under full headway. And yet many do this, jumping off side-wise, so that it is impossible to advance; and some even jump in the opposite direction from the motion of the car, which increases the already imminent hazard. From statistics recently collected, it appears that the great majority of accidents on the rail-roads of this country have happened in this way, a want of practical conformity to this one law of motion being the prevailing cause of fatality along these thoroughfares. This is but a specimen of the fatal accidents that are continually occurring in the every-day transactions of life, which might be prevented as easily as this by the practical application of a single scientific principle.

LOSS OF LIFE.—In a single hospital at Dublin, during four years, 2944 children out of 7650, about 40 in 100, died within a fortnight after their birth. Dr. Clark, the attending physician, suspecting a want of pure air to be the cause, provided for the ventilation of all the apartments; and by means of pipes six inches in diameter, introduced into every room a current of fresh, pure air, which is essential to vitality, and allowed that which was vitiated by respiration to escape. The consequence was, that during the three succeeding years only 165 out of 4243 children died within the first two weeks, or less than 4 in 100. As there was no other known cause of improvement in the health of these children, it may be justly inferred that, during the four years first mentioned, 2650 children, nine tenths of the whole number, had perished for want of pure air.

It has been estimated that about 40 in every 100 of the deaths annually occurring in Great Britain and the United States are of children under five years of age. To avoid every possibility of exaggeration, we will place the number in this country at 30 in 100. At this rate we lose about 200,000 children under five years of age every year. Now, if nine tenths of the mortality among infants in the Dublin Hospital were caused by breathing bad air, we may reasonably infer that at least one half of the deaths in the United States of children under the age of five years proceed from the same fatal cause. And those who have noticed what pains are taken by excessively careful mothers[48] and ignorant nurses to exclude from the lungs of infants the "free, pure, unadulterated air of heaven," and, by means of many thicknesses of enveloping shawls and blankets, require them to re-respire portions at least of their own breath, until it becomes a virulent and deadly poison, will think with me that this is a low estimate, and wonder that the swaddling-cloths of more infants do not become their winding-sheets. But, even according to this estimate, 100,000 children in the United States annually fall victims to the ignorance of their fond mothers. Many thousands more are subsequently sacrificed in consequence of occupying small and unventilated bed-rooms and school-rooms, which, by a practical knowledge of the principles of physiology, might be saved. Perhaps as many more become sufferers for life from the same cause, for a thousand forms of disease, as it manifests itself in every stage of life, either owe their existence or their severity to breathing bad air. These, then, who drag out a miserable existence in consequence of this cruel treatment, are to be more pitied than those who fall its ready victims.

[48] It would seem that the great majority of "educated mothers" do not realize the necessity of supplying pure air to the new-born child. Before birth, the blood of the fetus is purified in the maternal lungs; after birth, in the lungs of the child, if at all; and for this purpose pure air is necessary.

If so many thousand deaths occur annually in the United States from this one cause, in addition to the vast amount of misery which is entailed upon the wretched survivors, how many hundred thousand precious lives might be saved, and what untold wretchedness might be prevented, by a strict conformity to those physiological laws of our being which might and should be generally taught in the common schools of the land.

EDUCATION AND IDIOCY.[49]—The education of idiots has hitherto been regarded as paradoxical, and still is by the mass of mankind; but that it is possible to improve the condition of this most wretched and helpless class of persons none need longer doubt. The experiment has succeeded in both Europe and America. Massachusetts has the honor of taking the lead in this country; and it is meet that it should be so, for she has long, like a wise parent, been accustomed to care for all her children. She had most readily and generously seconded the efforts of humane men for the relief of the insane, the deaf mutes, and the blind, and made provision for their care and instruction. She extended her maternal love to the bodies of those who were in hopeless idiocy, but as for minds, they seemed to have none; they were, therefore, kept out of sight of the public as much as possible until the year 1846, when a board of commissioners were appointed "to inquire into the condition of the idiots of the commonwealth, to ascertain their number, and whether any thing can be done in their behalf."

[49] The statements under this head are drawn from Dr. Howe's Report on Idiocy, made in February last, and communicated by the governor to the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The author visited the Institution in South Boston during the past summer, and derived much information on the subject from personal observation and inquiry.

In their report the commissioners say that, "by diligent and careful inquiries in nearly one hundred towns in different parts of the state, we have ascertained the existence and examined the condition of five hundred and seventy-five human beings who are condemned to hopeless idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbors, and left to their own brutishness. They are also idiotic in a legal sense; that is, they are regarded as incapable of entering into contracts, and are irresponsible for their actions."

The commissioners conclude that, "if the other parts of the state contain the same proportion of idiots to their whole population, the total number in the commonwealth is between fourteen and fifteen hundred!" Now if we make the same estimate in proportion to the entire population, it will appear that in the United States there are upward of thirty-five thousand persons in the most wretched and helpless condition of idiocy.