George S. Boutwell

“ The virtue and the glory of industry cannot be presented too often to the young. I know of no worldly good or human excellence that can be attained without it; nor is there any inherited possession of name, or wealth, or position, that can be preserved in its extent and quality without active, systematic, judicious labor.
It is not necessary to consider industry as habitual diligence in a pursuit, manual or intellectual; but rather as a judicious arrangement of business and recreation, so as always to have time for the necessary duties of life. Mere diligence is not industry in a good sense ”

“ We are, through family, religious, and public education, to take security of the childhood and youth of the land for the preservation of the institutions we have, and for the growth, greatness, and justice, of the republic. Liberty in America, if you will admit the distinction, is a growth and not a creation. The institutions of liberty in America have the same character. By many centuries of trial, struggle, and contest, through many years of experience, sometimes joyous, and sometimes sad, the fact and the institutions of liberty in America have been evolved. ”

“ Excellence is always adorable and to be adored. If it appear in beauty of person, it commands our admiration; and how much more ought wisdom, which is the beauty of the mind and the excellency of the soul, to be cultivated and cherished by every human being! "For what is there, O, ye gods!" says Cicero, "more desirable than wisdom? What more excellent and lovely in itself? What more useful and becoming for a man? ”

“ Nor is labor, the penalty for sin, a punishment merely, but a divine means of reformation. It is, therefore, a moral discipline that all should submit to; and especially is it a means by which the youth here are to be prepared for the duties of life. But industry is not only near to all the virtues; it is itself a virtue, as idleness is a vice. The word labor is, of course, used in the broadest signification. Labor is any honest employment, or use of the head or hands, which brings good to ourselves, and consequently, though indirectly, brings good to our fellow-men. ”

“ There is not a father, by whose side, in his daily or nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible, in his or her degree, for this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."
This institution, then, in the true relation of things, is not the glory of the state, but its shame. ”

“ The Massachusetts system of education is a noble tribute to freedom of thought. The power of educating a people, which is, in fine, the chief power in a state, has been often, if not usually, perverted to the support of favored opinions in religion and government. The boasted system of Prussia is only a prop and ally of the existing order of things. In France, Napoleon makes the press, which has become in civilized countries an educator of the people, the mere instrument of his will. Tyrants do not hesitate to pervert schools and the press, learning and literature, to the support of tyranny. ”

“ And always, as in the beginning, the reliance of this school is upon the people of the commonwealth, whose voice has spoken into existence another instrumentality to give eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, a heart for the work of this life, and a hope for an hereafter, to those who from neglect and vicious example would soon pass the period of reformation. But may the people always bear in mind the indisputable truth, that schools for the criminal and the exposed yield not their perfect fruits in a day or a year! ”

“ Is it not worth something to the rich man, who cannot, from the circumstances of the case, teach self-reliance around the family hearth, to send his child to school to learn this lesson with other children, that he may be stimulated, that he may be provoked to exertions which he would not otherwise have made? For, be it remembered that in our schools public sentiment is as well marked as in a college, or a town, or a nation; that it moves forward in the same way. And the great object of a teacher should be to create a public sentiment in favor of virtue. ”

“ And may it not be forgotten that all apparent reformation must be hedged by this cardinal virtue of practical life! Otherwise the best-formed expectations will fail; the highest hopes will be disappointed; and the life of these teachers, and the promise of the youth who may be gathered here, will be like the sun and the winds upon the desert, which bring neither refreshing showers nor fruitful harvests. Every form of labor requires faith. ”

“ Is it safe in any country, or in any profession or pursuit, to educate a few, and leave the majority to the indirect influence of the culture thus bestowed? And is it philosophical, in this country, where there is a degree of personal and professional freedom such as is nowhere else enjoyed, to found a college or higher institution of learning upon the general and admitted ignorance of the people in the given department? or is it wiser, by elementary training and the universal diffusion of better ideas, to make the establishment of the college the necessity of the culture previously given? ”

“ Ignorance is quicksand on which no stable political structure can be built; and I predict the future greatness of our beloved state, in those historical qualities that outlast the ages, from the fact that she is not tempted by her extent of territory, salubrity of climate, fertility of soil, or by the presence and promise of any natural source of wealth, to falter in her devotion to learning and liberty. ”

“ It is as great a privilege for the wealthy as for the poor to have an opportunity to send their children to good public schools. It is a maxim in education that the teacher must first comprehend the pupil mentally and morally; and might not many of the errors of individual and public life be avoided, if the citizen, from the first, were to have an accurate idea of the world in which he is to live? The demand of labor upon education, as they are connected with every material interest of society, is, that no one [Pg 43] shall be neglected. The mind of a nation is its capital. ”

“ But how can the youth of this age hope to be followers, even at a distance, of Demosthenes, and of those his peers, who, by eloquence, poetry, art, science, and general learning, have added dignity to the race, and given lustre to generations separated by oceans and centuries, unless they are animated by a spirit of progress, and cheered by a faith that shall be manifested in the disposition and the power to overcome the obstacles that lie in every one's path? ”

“ Conversation is at once an art, an accomplishment, and a science. It leads to valuable practical results. It has a place, and by no means an inferior place, in the schools. Facts stated, questions proposed, or theories illustrated, in conversation, are permanently impressed upon the mind. It is in the power of the teacher to communicate much information in this way, and it is in the power of us all to make conversation a means of improvement.
But, when the pupil leaves the school, reading, so systematic and thorough as to be called study, is, no doubt, the best culture he can enjoy. ”

“ What hope can there be for a young man who remains in prison until the last day of his sentence is measured by the sun in his course, and then passes into the world, with the mark of disgrace and the mantle of shame upon him, to the society of the companions by whose influence he first fell? For such a one there can be no hope. And be it always remembered that there are those without the prison walls, as well as many within, who resist every effort to bring the wanderers back to obedience and right. ”

“ In the affairs of this great republic, the power of a state is not to be measured by the number of its votes in Congress. Public opinion is mightier than Congress; and they who wield or control that do, in reality, bear rule. Power in the world, upon a large view, and in the light of history, has not been confided to the majorities of men. Greece, unimportant in extent of territory, a peninsula and archipelago in the sea, led the way in the civilization of the west, and, through her eloquence, poetry, history and art, became the model of modern culture. ”

“ They are human institutions built up through great sacrifices, and by the exercise of a high order of worldly wisdom. But the government is not an end—it is a means. The end is Liberty regulated by law; and the means will exist as long as the end thereof is attained. But, should the time ever come when the institutions of the country fail to secure the blessings of liberty to the living generation, and hold out no promise of better things in the future, I know not that these institutions could longer exist, of that they ought longer to exist. ”

“ Why should a dull scholar, or one who has but little taste or talent for a given study, be required to plod twelve, sixteen, or eighteen hours at unwelcome tasks, while another more favored disposes of his work in six? Why should a pupil, who is laboring under some mental or physical debility, be required to apply his mind unceasingly when he most needs rest and recreation? Why should the pages of a spelling-book, grammar, geography, or arithmetic, be the measure of each pupil's capacity? ”

“ The duty of the public is to provide means for the education of all. To do that, we need the political, social, and moral power of all, to sustain teachers and institutions of learning; and, endowed or free schools, depending upon the contributions of individuals, can never, in a free country, be raised to the character of a system. If you rob the public schools of the influence of our public-spirited men, if they take away a portion of their pupils from them, our system is impaired. ”

“ It is the duty of the parent, the duty of the friend; but, above all, it is the duty of the public. This duty arises from the relations of men in every civilized state; but in a popular government it becomes a necessity. The people are the source of power—the sovereign. And is it more important in a monarchy than in a republic that the ruler be intelligent, virtuous, and in all respects qualified for his duties?
The institution here set up is an essential part of our system of public instruction, and, as such, it claims the public favor, sympathy and support. ”

“ Government, which is the organized expression of the will of society, should represent the best elements of which society is composed; and it ought, therefore, to combat error and wrong, and seek to inaugurate labor, justice, and truth, as the elements of stability, growth, and power. It must accept as its principles of action the best rules of conduct in individuals. The man who avenges his personal wrongs by personal attacks or vindictive retaliation, must sacrifice in some measure the sympathy of the wise, the humane, and the good. ”

“ Nor are they the best friends of the Union who lavishly bestow upon it nicely-wrought encomiums, as though the gilding of rhetoric and the ornament of praise could shield a human institution from the judgment of a free people; but rather they who, under Heaven, and in the presence of men, seek to so interpret the constitution as, in the language and in the order of its preamble, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty" to themselves and their posterity. ”

“ Some humble measure of this greatness may be attained by all; and, if I have sought to lead you in the way of improvement by considerations too purely personal and selfish, I will implore you, in conclusion, as teachers and as citizens, to consider yourselves as the servants of your country and your race. There can be no real greatness of mind without generosity of soul. If a superior human intellect seems to be specially the gift of God, how is he wanting in true religion who fails to dedicate it to humanity, justice, and virtue! ”

“ Looking at America with the eye of an European, it appears to me that your world is doing more and your schools are doing less, in the cause of education, than you are inclined to believe." For one, though I ought, as much as any, to stand for the schools, I give a qualified assent to the truth of this observation. There is much learning among us which we cannot trace directly to the schools; but the schools have introduced and fostered a spirit which has given to the world the power to make itself learned. ”

“ The institution only of the Normal School is new; the idea is old. The Normal system is but a better expression of an idea partially concealed, but nevertheless to be found in the college, grammar school and academy of our fathers. Nor have we accepted the institution so readily from a knowledge of its results in other countries, as from its manifest fitness to meet a want here. It is not, then, our fortune to inaugurate a new idea, but only to clothe an old one again, so that it may more efficiently advance popular liberty, intelligence and virtue. ”

“ It is worth something in this world, no doubt, to be rich; but what is the result of that condition upon the family first, the school afterwards, and society finally? It is, that some learn the lesson of life a little earlier than others; and that lesson is the lesson of self-reliance, which is worth more than—I will not say a knowledge of the English language—but worth more than Latin or Greek. If the great lesson of self-reliance is to be learned, who is more likely to acquire it early,—the child of the poor, or the child of the rich ”