message to Congress. Dec. 3, 1877. In Misc. Docs. of the House of Representatives for the 2d sess. of the 53d Cong., 1893-94. Washington, Gov't printing office, 1895, p. 479.

BENJAMIN HARVEY HILL.

(1823-1882. Lawyer and statesman.)

In the present, far more than in any preceding age, ideas govern mankind. . . . Moving by nations, by races, and by systems, this irresistible rule-educated thought-is setting aside old and setting up new civilizations at will...

In the first place, it must be conceded that the most striking manifestations of progress in modern civilization are found in the extensions of educational facilities to the masses of the people; in the elevation and advancement of strictly industrial pursuits; in the establishment of scientific, physical, mechanical, and all polytechnic schools, and in the discoveries made and results wrought by educated and enlightened industries. . . .

Modern progress is chiefly, if not entirely, found not in the advancement of what are called the learned professions but in the education and elevation of the masses; in the discoveries and appliances of the physical sciences; in the establishment of schools of science; and in the promotion, enlargement, and results of all departments of industries. . .

Education is the one subject for which no people ever yet paid too much. Indeed, the more they pay, the richer they become. Nothing is so costly as ignorance, and nothing so cheap as knowledge. Even under old civilizations the States and people who provided the greatest educational dissemination and advantages were always the most wealthy, the most powerful, the most feared and respected by others, and the most secure in every right of person and property among themselves. And this truth will be tenfold more manifest in the future than it has been in the past. The very right arm of all future national power will rest in the education of the people.— Speech delivered before the Alumni Society of the University of Georgia, at Athens, Ga., July 31, 1871. In Senator Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia; his Life, Speeches, and Writings. Written and Compiled by his Son, Benjamin H. Hill, jr. Atlanta, 1893, pp. 335, 337, 338, 346.

WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER.

(1824-1908. Educator and scientist.)

When society feels the sting of depravity there is no stopping to listen to theories of government and individualism. Society takes vengeance. But public education aims to prevent crime and worth

lessness by gathering the young people in schools and forming their characters, so that in after life they shall not be a public nuisance, but will ennoble the community.-Virginia School Report, 1872. (Second Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.) Richmond, 1872, p. 2.

A disparagement of the higher education is sometimes founded on the fact that men who never received liberal education rise to high positions and accomplish great results. To the credit of our race, and especially of our age and country, such examples do frequently occur, and such men are worthy of double honor. But they are the exceptions. As a rule, the higher work is done by cultured men. And many of those who are called "self-made men " have been laborious students at home, as was true of Charlemagne, and to a considerable extent of Patrick Henry, of Henry Clay, and of Samuel Houston; and whatever may be said by others, men of this rank are rarely, if ever, found disparaging education. They never forget how much harder they have had to struggle and how they suffer all their lives because they did not enjoy liberal advantages in early life.-Ibid., p. 92.

JABEZ LAMAR MONROE CURRY.

(1825-1903. Soldier, statesman, and educator.)

...

It is the prime business and duty of each generation to educate the next. No legislation in the United States is more important than that which pertains to the universal education of our citizens. The education of the children of a State is properly a burden on property and is the cheapest defense of the property and the lives of citizens. Speech at Louisville, Ky., 1883. In J. L. M. Curry, a Biography. By E. A. Alderman and A. C. Gordon. New York, 1911, pp. 412–413.

The lowest considerations of self-interest demand the competent support of universal education. Free government is the outcome of diffused intelligence and broad patriotism. An ignorant rabble is food for riots and the tool of demagogues.-Address delivered in 1888 to Legislature of Georgia. Ibid., p. 416.

ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE.

(1830-1894. Lawyer and statesman.)

Our friends in the valley of the Mississippi object to it [Blair bill], many of them. It is lawful, they say, to give money to the Mississippi Valley on any and every occasion and pretext. The Mississippi must have money when its waters are too low. It must have

n

money when its waters are too high... It is a lawful stream; it must always have money. But while you must protect the farmer's cotton plantation along the bank of the Mississippi, it would make the bones of Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice Marshall turn over in their graves if there is any proposition to educate the child who lives in the swamp that is to be reclaimed, in order to fit him for citizenship.-Speech on the Blair bill. Life of Zebulon B. Vance. By Clement Dowd. Charlotte, N. C., 1897, pp. 414-415.

...

It is impossible to have an effective public-school system without providing for the training of teachers. . . . The schools in which this training is conducted, called normal colleges or normal schools, have been found by experience to be the most efficacious agents in raising up a body of teachers who infuse new life and vigor into the public schools. There is urgent need for one, at least, in North Carolina. . . . A school of similar character should be established for the education of colored teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by the black race even than [by] the white. In addition to the fact that it is our plain duty to make no discrimination in the matter of public education, I can not too strongly urge upon you the importance of the consideration that whatever of education we may be able to give the children of the State, should be imparted under our own auspices, and with a thorough North Carolina spirit. Many philosophical reasons can be given in support of this proposition. . . . This desire for education is an extremely creditable one and should be gratified as far as our means will permit. In short, I regard it as an unmistakable policy to imbue these black people with a hearty North Carolina feeling and make them cease to look abroad for the aids to their progress and civilization and the protection of their rights as they have been taught to do, and teach them to look to their own State instead; to teach them that their welfare is indissolubly linked with ours.-Message to the General Assembly of North Carolina, 1877. Quoted in North Carolina Journal of Education, vol. 1, p. 1, May, 1898.

JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD.

(1831-1881. Soldier and statesman; twentieth President of the United States.)

The doctrine of "demand and supply" does not apply to educational wants. Even the most extreme advocates of the principle of laissez faire as a sound maxim of political philosophy admit that governments must interfere in aid of education. We must not wait for the wants of the rising generation to be expressed in a demand for means of education. We must ourselves discover and supply their needs before the time for supplying them has forever passed.Speech in the House of Representatives, June 8, 1866.

Men have always reverenced prodigious inborn gifts and always will. Indeed, barbarous men always say of the possessors of such gifts: These are not men, they are gods. But we teachers, who carry on a system of popular education which is by far the most complex and valuable invention of the nineteenth century, know that we have to do, not with the highly gifted units, but with the millions who are more or less capable of being cultivated by the long, patient, artificial training called "education." For us and our system the genius is no standard, but the cultivated man is. To his stature we and many of our pupils may in time attain.-The New Definition of the Cultivated Man. In National Education Association. Journal of Proceedings and Addresses, 1903, pp. 46-47.

It is but natural . . . that universities should be always and everywhere patriotic. They seek ideals, and our country in the modern sense is one of the noblest of ideals, being no longer represented by an idealized person, as the king or queen, but being rather a personified ideal, free, strong, and beautiful.-The Aims of the Higher Education. In Educational Reform. New York, 1898, p. 249.

I believe that the American people accept, as one just definition of democracy, Napoleon's phrase, "Every career open to talent;" and I believe that this saying will fairly characterize the grammar school of the future. The Grammar School of the Future. Ibid., p. 311.

(STEPHEN) GROVER CLEVELAND.

(1837-1908. Statesman; twenty-second President of the United States.)

The theory of the State in furnishing more and better schools for the children is that it tends to fit them to perform better their duties as citizens, and that an educated man or woman is apt to be more useful as a member of the community. . . . A moment's reflection ought to convince all of you that when you have once entered upon the stern, uncompromising, and unrelenting duties of mature life there will be no time for study. You will have a contest then forced upon you which will strain every nerve and engross every faculty. A good education, if you have it, will aid you, but if you are without it you can not stop to acquire it. When you leave the school you are well equipped for the van in the army of life, or you are doomed to be a laggard, aimlessly and listlessly following in the rear.Writings and Speeches, selected and ed. . . . by G. F. Parker. New York [1892], pp. 218-219.

...

HENRY WOODFIN GRADY.

(1850-1889. Journalist and publicist.)

Let us educate him [the negro] that he may be a better, a broader, and more enlightened man. Let us lead him in steadfast ways of citizenship, that he may no longer be the sport of the thoughtless and the prey of the unscrupulous. Let us inspire him to follow the example of the worthy and upright of his race, who may be found in every community, and who increase steadily in numbers and influence.-Speech at exposition held at Augusta, Ga., November, 1888. Life and Labors of Henry W. Grady... Atlanta, 1890, pp. 804-305.

WALTER HINES PAGE.

(1855-. Publicist and diplomat.)

The old aristocratic system had a leaning toward charity as the ecclesiastical system has; and the view of education as a charity has always been one of the greatest weaknesses of both systems. Education pays the State. The more persons educated, the better education pays the State.-In The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths. New York, 1905, p. 42.

I believe in the free public training of both the hands and the mind of every child born of woman.

I believe that by the right training of men we add to the wealth of the world. All wealth is the creation of man, and he creates it only in proportion to the trained uses of the community; and the more men we train the more wealth everyone may create.—Ibid., p. 102.

The far-reaching quality of the work that the energetic educators in the South are doing lifts them out of the ranks of mere schoolmasters and puts them on the level of constructive statesmen. They are the servants of democracy in a sense that no other public servants now are, for they are the rebuilders of these old commonwealths.Ibid., pp. 150-151.

To talk about education in a democratic country as meaning anything else than free public education for every child is a mockery. To call anything else education at all is to go back toward the Middle Ages, when it was regarded as a privilege of gentlemen or as a duty of the church, and not as a necessity for the people.-Ibid., pp. 87-88.

The first right of the man in the democracy, then, is to have a school. Education is the preparation of the fully developed free man