the States is similar to other acts donating public lands to certain seminaries and colleges. repeat what I said before in my speech, that no authority can be found in the Constitution to support the position taken by the advocates of this bill; but on the contrary, we find in the action of the Convention which framed our Constitution the following propositions to vest additional powers in the General Government, namely:

"To establish a university.

"To establish seminaries for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences.

"To establish public institutions, rewards, and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, commerce, trades, and manufactures." Journal of the Convention, page 261.

All these were rejected by the Convention. Mr. Story, who, in his views on the powers of the Federal Government, was a Federalist of the Hamilton school, in commenting on the rejection by the Convention of the last of the above-stated propositions, says:

"It was a power much more broad in its extent than the power to encourage manufactures by the exercise of another granted power. In truth, it involved a direct power to establish institutions, rewards, and immunities for all the great interests of society, and was on that account deemed too broad and sweeping. It would establish a general and not a limited power of Government."-Story on the Constitution, section 1094.

Mr. Speaker, some things have been said in this debate which make it necessary for me to say something on the general subject of education in reply. My colleague on the Committee on Education and Labor, the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. HOAR,] has the very crudest conception of the true nature of education. His estimate of education is a mathematical one. His idea is that a man who is educated is worth about twenty-five per cent. more than a man who is not. His idea, and it is a perfectly Yankee one, is that the object of education is to make a man cunning in diplomacy, artful and crafty in war, that it teaches him how to take advantage of his neighbor, helps a man to office, and much more of the same sort.

Mr. Speaker, that idea of education is low and debasing. The idea of the gentleman from Massachusetts is up to the idea of education in his own State. If education helps a man to take advantage of his neighbor's ignorance, and at the same time keeps him out of the penitentiary, that man is called "smart" in and around Boston. If education is only to qualify a man for making good bargains, and get the better of his fellow man in a business transaction, the people would be as well off without it. The idea prevalent in the region of country represented by the gentleman from Massachusetts is that education is simply the training of a man's intellectual faculties; man as a moral and physical being is ignored. My idea of education is that it must develop and cultivate all the moral, intellectual, and physical faculties possessed by man. The system of education that simply crams a man's intellectual capacity, and ignores his moral and physical being, is partial and one-sided.

The

result is infidelity in religion and physical deterioration in the race, two of the greatest evils that curse the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to day.

Under the prevalent "notions" prevailing there, infidelity has almost driven out the old ideas of Puritanism, and the doctrines of Theodore Parker, who believed himself equal to Jesus Christ, (these gentlemen from the "hub are great boasters,) are taking their place in the literary mind of Massachusetts. Infidel doctrines too gross even for the skep tical mind of Germany, have found a congenial soil in Massachusetts. Many of her highest institutions of learning, her most influential periodicals, and her greatest scholars are lending their aid to the spread of a dogma destructive of the most sacred teachings of the Bible. Hand in hand with this infidelity in religion goes a system of rationalistic philosophy born

on the banks of the Ganges badly imitated by Fichte in Germany and Carlyle in England, and by Emerson introduced into Massachusetts. This philosopher, by whom the literati of Boston swear, denies that God is a being so called, but rather a supreme law or system of laws, destitute of what we call personality or personal consciousness. Yet these false systems of religion and philosophy are de fended by persons whom the member from Massachusetts would call "intellectual" menmen who have had their wits sharpened at the expense of their higher moral natures.

Mr. Speaker, this is a sad spectacle for us to contemplate in this the latter half of the nineteenth century-at this time when infidel Germany and France are making mighty efforts to bring back the Philosophy of the Absolute into harmony with the great Being whom we call God, and whose attributes are infinite power, wisdom, justice, goodness, and love.

An education that simply stores the memory with facts, or enlarges the capacity of the judgment or understanding, leaving the moral nature of man untouched, is but half education. Where generous impulses are not instilled into the soul; where high, manly virtues are not implanted; where magnanimity is not taught; where charity is wanting, there is no true, genuine education. A member who enjoyed such a comprehensive education would not here in this House be continually magnifying the faults of sister States. Such an education causes the member from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] to see with the eye of a vulture a whipping-post away off in Delaware, but renders him as blind as an owl in the blaze of the noonday sun to the horrible abuses of the factory system in his own.

In reading the report of the bureau of statistics of labor made to the Legislature of Massachusetts on the 1st day of March, 1870, a state of things is brought to light the parallel to which can only be found in Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. When we recollect that this report is a statement of actual facts of every-day experience, made by Massachusetts men, anxious no doubt to defend their State, we are bound to admit that Mrs. Stowe does not make out so bad a case against slaveholders as this report does against the factory system of Massachusetts. We have there set forth in detail the horrible condition of the working classes of that State, the equal of which can nowhere be found. It is a sickening development of whipping and starvation; of men, women, boys and girls, discharged because they attempted to utter their views on the subject of capital and labor. Even the committee appointed to investigate this system of wrong were compelled to omit the names of the parties testifying before them in order to protect them from the cruelty of their masters. I give extracts from this report, that the country may see that I have not overstated the facts. This report is found in the legislative document of the senate of Massachusetts for the year 1870. On page 140 of the report the bureau states: "Can it be possible in this Commonwealth of Massachusetts, favored above States as she is, or as her people say she is," &c.; we find in official form a statement of the boastful character of this people, and hope the gentleman from that State, before he attempts to pull the mote out of the eye of the gentleman from Delaware, will take the beam out of his own eye:

Testimony of an Overlooker of seventeen years' experience, five in this country and twelve in England, in a cotton-mill.

"Worked in England under the ten-hour law; is familiar with the system of inspection in England; has seen an inspector enter disguised as a laborer; he forbade any one leave the room until after the inspection; found thirty or more children working contrary to law, for which the owner was fined. Now works eleven hours per day, except Saturday; thinks there are many children under fifteen years of age; according to the best of my knowledge, I believe there are one hundred and fifty under that age in the room in which I am employed; one, a girl, measur

ing four feet five inches high, weighing sixty-two pounds; another, about the same height, weighing sixty-four and a half pounds; think they are about eleven years of age. These children are poor, emaciated, and sickly; none of them have attended school

during the past year. Six years ago I ran night-work from six forty-five p. m. to six a. m., with forty-five minutes for meals, eating in the room. The children were drowsy and sleepy; have known them to fall asleep standing up at their work. Some of these children are now working in the mill, and appear to be under fifteen years of age. I have had to sprinkle water in their faces to arouse them, after having spoken to them till hoarse; this was done gently, without any intention of hurting them."

Testimony of an Operative.

"Had worked at Lawrence; discharged for agitating the ten-hour movement. Wife and boy work in mill. There are very many children under ten years employed in mills at Persons boarding in factory houses must leave the house when they leave the mill. (This is at Lawrence.) Married women with families have been compelled to work over hours, and on refusal have been discharged. Came to United States because he expected to better his condition, but thinks the liberties enjoyed by a factory operative are greater in England than hero; and his advantages are better, and there is more freedom and social intercourse among the work people. There the overseers, or overlookers, as they are called, are less authoritative and overbearing. An agent there is called 'superintendent,' (or 'super,') and the owner of the mill is known as the 'master.'

"Under a period of prosperity there the workingmen's privileges are greater than here. They have more liberty to discuss wages, grievances, &c. Their unions are acknowledged by capital. The secretary of the masters' association corresponds with the secretary of the workmen's association, invites a meeting of committees of the two parties to discuss the points of dispute, and these are generally arranged by such committees. Men are never discharged for taking part in trades or labor questions, and this is agreed to and enforced by the constitution of the masters' association. If discharged at all from one mill, workmen can go and work in any other mill in the same place; and for every hour lost by interference of employer he is held responsible by law." Testimony of Miss —.

"In case of accidents the corporation pays nothing in support of the party injured, neither is the pay continued. I have known persons to be discharged for participating in labor-reform movements. I am liable to be discharged for coming here if it is known. Many years ago I worked fourteen hours per day; I have seen the time during the last five years when between five and six o'clock I could have lain down between the looms and gone without my supper. The effect of factory life upon children is bad; they grow poor. I have seen children look like dwarfs, stunted both physically and mentally. It disqualifies women for household work. I think a reduction of the hours of labor to eight would result in good to all. The only chance for a poor working girl, who is not married, is to work; and if she is sick and has no home she may go to the alms-house. The factories are becoming more oppressive; they have just cut down the weavers seven cents on a dollar. The house where I board has eighteen rooms, consisting of the kitchen, one sitting room, two dining rooms, and fourteen sleeping rooms. There are fifty-three persons in the house. The largest sleeping room is sixteen by twenty feet, eleven foot post; it contains six beds, occupied by twelve persons; there is no stove and no water in the room. The attic is twenty-five by eleven feet, ten feet high in the highest part; it contains three beds occupied by six persons; there is but one window in the room, and that does not let down at the top." Testimony of -.

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"I am a superintendent of a cotton-mill, of experience in this country and Europe, employing a large number of operatives, several hundred of whom are children. There are no more than one half of the children that can write their names at all, and many of those who can do it but imperfectly. There is no system of schooling, and but a small portion have attended school at all." At this moment, spite of all law, children under fifteen years of age, and some under ten, are employed in factories all over the State eleven hours a day. And this is known from returns received by the bureau of statistics of labor, wherein the fact is confessed, and the law is confessedly too weak to reach and remedy the mischief." "Next we entered a room occupied by H-Mcwife, and three boys, at a rent of $1 23 a week. Here the plastering was broken down, the walls dark and damp, and no furniture whatever in the room except a mattress and some trunks piled in a corner. The windows had been taken out to expel the tenants, the man being out of work. The woman had been sheltered by a friend in Cambridge. The father and three boys had slept on the floor during the stormy night of the 18th, and those of the 19th and 20th of December, without fire or covering except their own clothing."

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"In another room on the lower floor, immediately over a cellar full of stenchy water, were a man and wife. As yet, the only furniture they had was a bed in the corner, and a little fire of wood in the fireplace. The woman asked us to look into the cellar, which we inspected by means of a lighted roll of newspaper, but were soon driven out by the stench and reeking damp and dirt. In the whole yard are thirteen families containing thirty-six persons, oc cupying twelve rooms."

Another witness says:

There are several children in one of these factories I visited lately under ten years of age, working their respective eleven and a half hours, which is considered by the parents to be cruel; in winter getting out of bed at an early hour and starting for their work at six and a half on cold mornings."

Let us examine for a moment the physical degeneracy of this State. Diseases resulting from a vicious course of life are greatly on the increase, such as scrofulous complaints, dyspepsia, apoplexy, and neuralgia. It shows itself, too, in another form, which should arouse the attention of every American citizen, and that is that the birth-rate in Massachusetts is constantly diminishing. In 1850 the census returns the population of Massachusetts 994,514-Americans, 830,066; and foreign, 164,448. The registration reports of that State make the whole births 27,664American, 16,189; foreign, 8,197, with 3,278 mixed, most of which are of foreign descent. Here we see that while the native population exceeds the foreign by more than five to one, yet the birth rate of the latter is double the former. The census taken by the State for the year 1865 returns the whole population in the same State as 1,267,003-American, 1,002,545; and foreigners, 265,486. The regis tration report shows for the same year the whole number of births, 30,249-American, 13,276; foreign, 14,130; and mixed, most of which were also foreign, 2,406. Here, again, we see that the native population outnumbers the foreign four to one, yet the number of births in the latter are actually greater than in the former. Yet the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] has the ingratitude to say that these foreigners commit all the crimes in that State, and vote the Democratic ticket! If it be a fact that they do vote the Democratic ticket, then my party has the credit, at least, of preventing a decrease in the population of the old Commonwealth; for it is clear that were it not for the influx of a foreign population, Massachusetts would to-day be on the decline, for it is conclusively shown by her own registration reports, and other sources, that the number of deaths among the native population exceeds that of the births! The birth-rate in Massachusetts is greatly behind that of every nation in Europe.

These considerations recommend themselves to every thinking mind at the present juncture of affairs. If Massachusetts has during the last ten years shaped the legislation of the country in regard to the southern States, let us now see that she does not fasten upon the young and rising Commonwealths of the South and West a system of infidelity and rationalism; that the vices which are destroying her own people to such an extent that her native population is on the decrease, are not forced upon the other portions of the country. For when the whole country once reaches the limit that Massachusetts has, we have finished our career; there is nothing left for us to do but to die. When Greece and Rome failed to produce men, they ceased to exist. We cannot escape their fate.

I do not wish to be understood, on this subject of physical degeneracy, as reproaching Massachusetts. I have no doubt some of the other educated States, if the statistics were at hand, would reveal the same state of things. But it is humiliating to our national pride that there should be in the first century of our national existence a decrease in the native population of our most intelligent States. It is the duty of every statesman to address himself to this question and see wherein the difficulty lies.

The SPEAKER. The hour of three o'clock has arrived, at which, according to the order of the House, the previous question is to be considered as seconded, and the main question ordered.

Mr. PERCE. The amendment offered by

the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. POLAND] covers the point contemplated by my amendment, and is entirely satisfactory to me. therefore withdraw my amendment.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Under the arrangement which was agreed upon as to the offering of amendments, I move to amend by adding to section one the following:

Provided, That nothing contained in this section shall be held to limit or abridge the power of Congress over the public domain or interfere with granting bounty lands to the soldiers and sailors of our late war.

Mr. HEREFORD. I move to amend seetion eight by inserting at the end thereof the following:

Provided, That no moneys belonging to any State or Territory under this bill shall be withheld from any State or Territory for the reason that the law thereof provides for separate schools for white and black children or refuses to organize a system of mixed schools.

Mr. HOLMAN. I move to amend by adding to section two the following:

Provided, however, That after the passage of this act no public lands of the United States shall be sold except mineral lands and town sites; and all the public lands of the United States adapted to agriculture shall be reserved for actual settlers under the provisions of the homestead laws, subject, however, to land warrants and college scrip issued by authority of Congress, and the grants which Congress shall hereafter make in the Territories and new States for purposes of education.

Mr. TAFFE. I offer the following amendment as an additional section :

And be it further enacted, That nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to affect in any manner the existing law and regulations in regard to the adjustment and payment to States, upon their admission into the Union, of five per cent. of the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands within their respective limits.

Mr. PERCE. I now rise to close the debate.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman, having reported the bill, is entitled to one hour after the seconding of the previous question.

Mr. PERCE. I yield ten minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY.]

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, I desire to refer to the passing remark of the gentleman from New Hampshire, [Mr. PARKER,] that this was an effort to get three dollars for the North by giving one to the South. There is, so far as I am aware, no northern State that needs any measure of that kind. Certainly the State which I have the honor in part to represent does not. She has her school system, comparable, I think, to any in the country. While yet the South-yes, while yet Virginia, which, as one of her Representatives [Mr. HARRIS] told us, is educating all her children-made it a felony to teach a colored child to read. Pennsylvania, by the liberality of her citizens, had provided for a collegiate education for colored people both at Pittsburg and Philadelphia. Her munificent system of common schools is coextensive with the State and the munificent endowment of Girard college, wherein a thousand poor white orphans are housed, fed, clothed, and advanced in the languages living and dead, and the higher mathematics-yet in addition to all this Pennsylvania has assumed the charge of those who should be the nation's wards, the orphans of her soldiers-the sons and daughters of those of her citizens who died in hospitals or southern prisons, or on the field of battle, or who are yet to die from the effects of exposure or wounds. These are at the cost of $520,000 a year, exclusive of the cost of the school system, cared for with motherly care, and educated to fit them for the most exalted duties of life. || Having such provisions for the education of our children, we need not desire to rob the South in order to increase our educational advantages. This measure is not unjust to the South, but is one which, if fairly carried into effect, will populate, enrich, and bless her.

Sir, in passing, I may remark, that the terror of the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. HARRIS,]

excited by his fear of mixed schools, need not be so extreme. If, as he seems to apprehend, such schools should be forced upon the people of his and other States, it will in the South be but temporary; for all men know that the sun and atmosphere of the southern States soon bleach the blackest African, both in hair and complexion, to the colors characteristic of the purest Saxon lineage.

Mr. HEREFORD. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him whether he is in favor of forcing mixed schools upon the people?

Mr. KELLEY. Having but ten minutes I decline to yield. In May, 1867, it was my privilege to visit many of the freedmen's schools of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and of the gentleman's own State of Virginia, and I found in each and all of them pupils of Saxon hue and Caucasian feature, with blue eyes, light hair, and Roman or Grecian nose. I said to the teachers of each school "I am glad you make no distinction of race, but open your schools to all," and invariably received in substance the same answer. Yes, at the school in Danville the reply was the same as at Charlotte, Atlanta, Montgomery, and New Orleans: "We receive as pupils none but the children of freedmen; all of them were slaves and are remotely of African descent." As the gentleman says there is no intercourse between the children of the different races because white children abhor it, I would like to learn the age at which the abhorrence ceases, or whether it is the effect of the climate of the South that so changed the complexion and features of those Virginiaus of African descent.

Mr. HEREFORD. I wish to ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania whether he is in favor of forcing mixed schools on the people?

Mr. KELLEY. In view of such facts as I have referred to, no man is authorized to say that the southern people abhor social intercourse between the races. The complexions of millions of people attest the falsity of the

assertion.

Mr. HEREFORD. But that does not answer my question, whether the gentleman is in favor of forcing mixed schools upon the country.

Mr. KELLEY. I cannot be interrupted. I say this measure will open the South to settlement and development. She has advantages a thousand-fold greater than the Northwest. These have lain there for a century, and the emigrant shuns them. The emigrants from all lands shun the sunny and fertile fields of the South. Why? Because ignorance curses that beautiful region. Its water-power is greater than that of any other section. It has mineral resources boundless in variety and extent, with which those of no other section can in either respect compare. Norfolk was the first commercial city of this country, and Virginia was the first State of the country and the mother of States. Where is Norfolk to-day as a commercial city? Where is Virginia in the list of States? Why do her mineral resources, why do her agricultural resources lie dead and unproductive? Why does her water-power. that might move more spindles than are in motion throughout the world, run to waste? It is because the South doomed the laborer to ignorance, and made it felony to teach the laboring child to read the Lord's prayer, or any one of the ten commandments. There are no schools there to welcome the children of the multitudes of emigrants who leave their homes to settle where they may own homesteads, and by their well-rewarded labor add to the world's wealth, while improving their own condition and that of their families. Give the people of Europe the assurance that common schools have been opened throughout the South, that intelligence is permitted to prevail there, that intelligent industry and labor shall find companionship there, and you will drain New England of population. You

will find your villages growing into towns, and your towns into cities, and with all your vast resources you will not cry out, nor will the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. PARKER] make the plea for you, that New England, cold, barren, ice bound New England, is so much more populous, that under a law of this kind the sunny South, with all its vast and varied resources, cannot tempt enough people to dwell within her limits to secure her a fair share of the fund.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. HEREFORD. Before the gentleman concludes I hope he will answer my question of forcing mixed schools on the people of the United States.

Mr. HARRIS, of Virginia. Will the gentleman from Ohio yield five minutes for me to reply to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY?]

Mr. PERCE. I now yield for ten minutes to the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. GARFIELD.]

Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. In the ten minutes given me I shall address myself to two questions. The first is: what do we propose by this bill to give to the cause of education? and the second is: how do we propose to give it? Is the gift itself wise, and is the mode in which we propose to give it wise? This arrangement will include all I have to say.

And first we propose, without any change in the present land policy, to give the net proceeds of the public lands to the cause of education. During the last fifteen years these proceeds have amounted to a little more than thirty three million dollars. That is almost exactly one per cent. of the entire revenues of the United States. The gift is not great, but yet in one view of the case it is princely. To dedicate for the future a fund which is now one per cent. of the revenues of the United States to the cause of education is to my mind a great thought, and I am glad to give it my indorsement. It seems to me that in this act of giving, we almost copy its prototype in what God himself has done on this great continent of ours. In the center of its greatest breadth, where otherwise there might be a desert forever, He has planted a chain of the greatest lakes on the earth, and the exhalations arising from their pure waters every day come down in gracious showers, and make that a blooming garden which otherwise might be a desert waste. And from our great wilderness lands it is proposed that their proceeds, like the dew, shall fall forever, not upon the lands, but upon the minds of the children of the nation, giving them for all time to come all the blessing and growth and greatness that education can afford. That thought, I say again, is a great one, worthy of a great nation, and this country will remember the man who formulated it into language, and will remember the Congress that made it law.

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The other point is one of even greater practical value and significance just now than this that I have referred to. It is this: how is this great gift to be distributed? We propose to give it, Mr. Speaker, through our American system of education; and in giving it, we do not propose to mar in the least degree the harmony and beauty of that system. If we did, I should be compelled to give my voice and vote against the measure; and here and now, when we are inaugurating this policy, I desire to state for myself, and, as I believe, for many who sit around me, that we do here solemnly protest that this gift is not to disturb the American system of education, but it is rather to be used through it and as a part of it, and to be wholly subordinated as a part of it, and

call our great American system of education. On this question I have been compelled heretofore to differ with many friends of educa tion here and elsewhere, many who have thought it might be wise for Congress, in certain contingencies, to take charge of the system of education in the States. I will not now discuss the constitutional aspects of that ques

by the experience of other nations.

Rev. J. Frazier, one of the assistant com. missioners appointed for this purpose, visited this country in 1865, and in the following year made his report to Parliament. While he found much to criticise in our system of education, he did not withhold his expressions of astonishment at the important part which private enterprise played in our system. In concluding his report, he speaks of the United States as "a nation of which it is no flattery or exaggeration to say that it is, if not the most highly, yet certainly the most gener ally educated and intelligent people on the globe."

tion; but I desire to say that all the philoso-igations, so as to enable that body to profit phy of our educational system forbids that we should take such a course. And in the few moments awarded to me I wish to make an appeal for our system as a whole as against any other known to me. We look sometimes with great admiration at a Government like Germany, that can command the light of its education to shine everywhere, that can enforce its school laws every where throughout the empire. Under our system we do not rejoice in that, but we rather rejoice that here two forces play with all their vast power upon our system of education. The first is that of the local, municipal power under our State governments. There is the center of responsibility. There is the chief educational power. There can be enforced Luther's great thought of placing on magistrates the duty of educating children.

Luther was the first to perceive that Christian schools were an absolute necessity. In a celebrated paper addressed to the municipal councilors of the empire in 1524, he demanded the establishment of schools in all the villages of Germany. To tolerate ignorance was, in the energetic language of the reformer, to make common cause with the devil. The father of a family who abandoned his children to ignorance was a consummate rascal. Addressing the German authorities, he said:

"Magistrates, remember that God formally commands you to instruct children. This divine commandment parents have transgressed by indolence, by lack of intelligence, and because of overwork.

The duty devolves upon you, magistrates, to call fathers to their duty, and to prevent the return of these evils which we suffer to-day. Give attention to your children. Many parents are like ostriches, content to have laid an egg, but caring for it no longer.

"Now, that which constitutes the prosperity of a city is not its treasures, its strong walls, its beautiful mansions, and its brilliant decorations. The real wealth of a city, its safety and its force is an abundance of citizens, instructed, honest, and cultivated. If in our days we rarely meet such citizens. whose fault is it, if not yours, magistrates, who have allowed our youth to grow up like neglected shrubbery in the forest?

"Ignorance is more dangerous for a people than the armies of an enemy."

After quoting this passage from Luther, Laboulaye, in his eloquent essay entitled "L'État et ses Limites,' pages 204 and 205,

says:

"This familiar and true eloquence was not lost. There is not a Protestant country which has not placed in the front rank of its duties the establishment and maintenance of popular schools."

The duties enjoined in these great utterances of Luther are recognized to the fullest extent by the American system. But they are recognized as belonging to the authorities of the State, the county, the township, the local communities. There, these obligations may be urged with all the strength of their high sanctions. There, may be brought to bear all the patriotism, all the morality, all the philanthropy, all the philosophy of our people, and there it is brought to bear in its noblest and best forms.

But there is another force even greater than that of the State and the local governments. It is the force of private voluntary enterprise, that force which has built up the multitude of private schools, academies, and colleges throughout the United States, not always wisely, but always with enthusiasm and wonderful energy. I say, therefore, that our local self-govern ment, joined to and cooperating with private enterprise, have made the American system of education what it is.

But a more valuable report was delivered to Parliament in 1868, by Mathew Arnold, one of the most cultivated and profound thinkers of England. He was sent by Parliament to examine the schools and universities of the continent, and after visiting all the leading States of Europe, and making himself thoroughly familiar with their system of education, he delivered a most searching and able report. In the concluding chapter, he discusses the wants of England on the subject of education. No one who reads that chapter can fail to admire the boldness and power with which he points out the chief obstacles to popular education in England. He exhibits the significant fact that while during the last half century there has been a general transformation in the civil organization of European Governments, England, with all her liberty and progress, is shackled with what he calls a civil organization, which is, from the top to the bottom of it, not modern. He says:

"Transform she must unless she means to come at last to the same sentence as the church of Sardis: Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." "However, on no part of this immense task of transformation have I now to touch, except on that part which relates to education, but this part, no doubt, is the most important of all, and it is the part whose happy accomplishment may render that of all the rest, instead of being troubled and difficult, gradual and easy.'

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"Obligatory instruction is talked of. But what is the capital difficulty in the way of obligatory instruction, or indeed any national system of instruction in this country? It is this, that the moment the working class of this country have this question of instruction really brought home to thein, their self-respect will make them demands like the working classes on the continent, public schools, and not schools which the clergyman or the squire or the mill-owner calls my school!' And what is the capital difficulty in the way of giving them public schools? It is this, that the public school for the people must rest upon the municipal organization of the country. In France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the public elementary school has, and exists by having, the commune and the municipal government of the commune, as its foundations, and it could not exist without them. But we in England have our municipal organization still to get; the country districts, with us, have at present only the feudal and ecclesiastical organization of the Middle Ages, or of France before the Revolution."

"The real preliminary to an effective system of popular education is, in fact, to provide the country with an effective municipal organization; and here, then, is at the outset an illustration of what I said, that modern societies need a civil organization which is modern.'

In the early part of 1870 a report was made to the minister of public instruction by Mr. C. Hippeau, a man of great learning, and who in the previous year had been ordered by the French Government to visit the United States and make a careful study of our system of public education. In summing up his conclusions, at the end of his report, he expresses opinions which are remarkable for their boldness, when we remember the character of the French Government at that time; and his recommendations have a most significant application to the principle under consideration. I translate his concluding paragraphs:

"What impresses me most strongly as the result of this study of public instruction in the United States is the admirable power of private enterprise in a country where the citizens, asking nothing from their Government, early adopted the habit of foreseeing their own wants for themselves; of meeting together and acting in concert; of combining their means of action; of determining the amount of pecuniary contribution which they will impose upon themselves, and of regulating its use;

and finally of choosing administrators who shall render them an account of the resources placed at their disposal, and of the use which they may make of their authority.

"This is not the occasion to insist on the advantages resulting from self-government in what copcerns the relations between public officers chosen by election and citizens who consider such officers only as their servants.

"The people of the United States are strangers to that servility which bows before a master; and on the other hand their officers are strangers to that insolent arrogance which treats with haughty contempt those whom they believe they have the right to command." "Never has a greater example been given by an independent and free people; never has there been produced a more brilliant proof of the excellence of democratic institutions.

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"The marvelous progress made in the United States during the last twenty years would have been impossible, if the national life, instead of being manifested on all points of the surface, had been concentrated in a capital, under the pressure of a strongly organized administration, which, holding the people under constant tutelage, wholly relieved them from the care of thinking and acting by themselves and for themselves. Will France enter upon that path of decentralization which will infallibly result in giving a scope, now unknown to all her vital forces, and to the admirable resources which she possesses? In what especially concerns public instruction, shall we see her multiplying, as in America, those free associations, those generous donations, which will enable us to place public instruction on the broadest foundation, and to revive in our provinces the old universities that will become more flourishing as the citizens shall interest themselves directly in their progress?

"To accomplish this, our citizens must resolve to break resolutely from that apathy and indifference which little by little have surrendered to Governments all the affairs which they ought to manage themselves. But it will also be necessary that Governments, appreciating the wants of their epoch, shall with good grace relinquish a part of the duties now imposed upon them, and aid the people in supporting the rigid régime of liberty, by enlarging the powers of the municipal councils and of the councils of the departments, by favoring associations and public meetings, which cease to be turbulent and dangerous whenever they become a part of the national habits, by opening the freest field to the examination and discussion of national interests; in short, by deserving the eulogy addressed by a man of genius to a great minister of France: Monseigneur, you have labored ten years to make yourselt useless.""

I have made these citations to show how strongly the public thought of Europe is moving toward our system of public education as better and freer than theirs. I do not now discuss the broader political question of State and municipal government as contrasted with centralized government. I am considering what is the best system of organizing the educational work of a nation, not from the political stand-point alone, but from the stand-point of the school house itself. This work of public education partakes in a peculiar way of the spirit of the human mind in its efforts for culture. The mind must be as free from extraneous control as possible; must work under the inspiration of its own desires for knowledge; and while instructors and books are necessary helps, the fullest and highest success must spring from the power of self-help.

So the best system of education is that which draws its chief support from the voluntary effort of the community, from the individual efforts of citizens, and from those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily impose upon themselves. The assistance proposed in this bill is to be given through the channels of this, our American system. The amount proposed is large enough to stimulate to greater effort and to general emulation the different States and the local school authorities, but not large enough to carry the system on, and to weaken all these forces, by making the friends of eduIcation feel that the work is done for them without their own effort. Government shall be only a help to them, rather than a commander in the work of education.

In conclusion, I say that in this bill, in the pending bill, we disclaim any control over the educational system of the States. We only require reports of what they do with our bounty; and those reports brought here and published for the information of the people will spread abroad the light, and awaken the enthusiasm and emulation of our people. This policy is in harmony with the bill of 1867, creating the

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Bureau of Education, and whose fruits have already been so abundant in good results. hope that the House will sets its seal of approval on our American system of education, and will adopt this mode of advancing and strengthening it.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. PERCE. I now yield ten minutes to the gentleman from New York, [Mr. GooDRICH.]

Mr. GOODRICH. Mr. Speaker, the importance of the proposed measure is such as to induce the wish for more time for its discussion than that now allotted to me. The question arises between those who would devote the net proceeds of the public lands to any other purpose than that of education, and those who would devote it wholly to that great interest to the exclusion of everything else, and my own views incline me to affiliate with the friends of education.

Sir, there is, in my opinion, no interest more vital to the development, wealth, strength, and security of our free, rational system of government than that general education of all classes and conditions of people which it is the object of the bill now under consideration to secure through the schools already established or to be established in the several States. And while this is a measure well worthy of attention on general grounds, it is now called for and specially demanded in consequence of the recent enfranchisement of the colored race among us; a race which exhibits many bright examples of proficient scholarship in our midst-sufficient, certainly, to vindicate its capacity for culture; and yet, owing to the long denial to it of the means of culture, it is at the present time almost universally without it. And, considering the cause for this lack of culture and education, and the relation the Government has stood to it, is there not reason for saying that the nation now absolutely owes education to the newly enfranchised citizens as a matter of strict justice to them? And how else but by securing it to them can the policy of their enfranchisement be carried out; for why enfranchise if you do not educate?

But, sir, to say nothing of national obligations to this uneducated part of our people, and looking at the question of extending to them the means of education simply from its influence on the general welfare, and still the measure should be undoubtedly adopted; for, let it be borne in mind, these newly enfranchised citizens are not a mere handful: they form full one tenth of our entire population, and are so distributed in different States as to constitute an actual majority of population in some, (Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina,) and number approximating very nearly to that in several others. The bare statement sir, shows what a vital interest these States, must have in the education of this new voting element, which is hereafter to exercise so controlling an influence on their welfare. And, under the constitutional bond of affinity which prevails, their welfare is indissolubly connected with that of all; hence, the general welfare is concerned.

sources of information, let me state that while in the States heretofore classed as free States there is only about an average of five per cent. of the adult population that cannot read and write, in the seventeen States formerly classified as slave States, including New Mexico and the District of Columbia, the average per cent. is forty-four, and in several of these States as high as sixty per cent. of the whole adult population, and even higher.

Mr. Speaker, the statement of facts now given brings me to one of the points in which I have felt constrained to dissent from the bill which has been brought forward by the committee. That proposes to distribute the net proceeds of the public lands among the States according to the basis of their population. Now, from information received from the Commissioner of the Land Office, it appears that for six years ending June 30, 1871, the average net proceeds of the cash sales of the public lands was annually a little over a million dollars.

And now if this sum be divided among the several States on the basis of population it will give, as will be seen, to the States heretofore denominated free States, which generally have large populations and but a small percentage of illiteracy, large dividends, and to the late slave States, with much smaller populations, but a greatly increased percentage of illiteracy, only inconsiderable sums, scarcely sufficient to operate as an encouragement for the establishment or maintenance of schools for

general education. For this reason, sir, I have moved to amend by substituting, as the basis of the division, the ratio of illiteracy in the several States, that being the real evil to be removed.

Sir, although this amendment, if adopted, will give less to the State which I have the honor in part to represent, and more to the States where more is needed, still, believing it to be the only true principle of distribution to be adopted, considering the end in view, and believing that my action will be fully sustained by the justice and magnanimity of my State, and meet with general approval on the part of all the States heretofore known as free States, I hope it will be adopted.

Mr. Speaker, the bill under consideration should be amended, in my opinion, in other respects, which, however, the time allotted me will not enable me to point out. And I can only add that if amended in the point to which the amendment I have submitted applies, I shall, as a humble friend of the cause of popular education reaching to all classes and conditions of people, feel constrained to give my support to the bill, though in some respects it may be less perfect than I could desire.

Mr. PERCE. I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. STEVENSON] for a short time. Mr. STEVENSON addressed the House. [His remarks will be found in the Appendix.] Mr. PERCE. I now yield to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. SHANKS] for five minutes.

Mr. SHANKS. I am in favor of the passage of this bill, because it provides for a general system of education, so far as the amount of money to be derived from this source will go to that end. I would not be for it if it directed

raising money to carry on the school system. I would not be in favor of taking away from the settler the right of preemption and homestead. I would not be in favor of opening a door to encroachments upon the rights of the Indians of this country to whom the nation has ceded lands. But it is because this bill does not interfere with any of these rights, and because it does provide for a general system of education that I am in favor of it.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. STORM] has objected to the bill on the ground that the method of distribution proposed would be injurious to the landed system of the country; but, sir, I believe that if this bill be passed and becomes a law, if it is understood