Political Science Of The State

INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CAUSES.

price, are among the chief advantages of the polities
the people govern themselves.

If, on the other hand, it were alleged that states with a
ing towards aristocracy neglect the education of the co
people, it would not be wholly true, as some of the states
Germany could testify. And yet, such a wealthy and
state as England, has, until recently, been neglectful in
respect. I know not how to account for this, except on tic
hypothesis that legislation being shaped for the upper classes,
the interests of the lower were overlooked, there was a con-
servative spirit which opposed the true sentiments of human~
ity and so far undermined the foundations of national great-

The education of the people in democratic governments,
indeed all the lower education of modern times, is wanting °a
the moral side, just where a popular government needs sup-
port the most. One reason of this has been that education
fell into the hands of religion, and religion was faithless to its
trust, or rather had a false view of what education meant. I*
was, to a great extent, the opinion of the Romish church, that
knowledge hurt the faith of the lower classes, that ignorance
was the mother of devotion. The religion that was inculcated
was the religion of catechisms, and of formulas of faith, not
the deep pure religion of the New Testament where morals
and faith are inseparably combined, and from which spring
the highest conceptions of character. The part of this \vork,
which ancient legislators assigned to states having thus fallen
into the hands of religious teachers, there is great danger of
an unhappy division of it, now that states are feeling it again
to be their office to train or provide training for the young*
On the one side secular instruction stands by itself, on t^e
other, religious. Education, thus, is in danger of becoming
too exclusively intellectual, so far as it is directed by the state,
The-harmony and .rhythm of soul, the sense of order, subor-
dination and beauty, which some of the ancient states strove
to cultivate—where are these professedly made a part of pub-
lic education? Where'are the public virtues and the duties