en that, although intelligence is not
the foundation of national greatness--for there is something deeper than
that--still it is the discerning and directing power upon which depends
the right use even of moral elements. They have scouted the notion that
there is any ultimate evil in diffused knowledge; any such thing as "a
dangerous truth;" and have affirmed that the best way to winnow the
false from the true, is to equip and set a-going the intellectual
machine by which God has ordained that the work shall be done. It has
been felt, that, if the State can properly extend its influence anywhere
beyond the restrictive limits of evil, or the punishment of overt wrong;
if anywhere it may exercise a positive ministration for good; it is
here, where it does not interfere on the one hand with those outward
pursuits which should be left to individual choice and aptitude, nor on
the other, with those inward sanctities which pertain to conscience and
to God; it is here, in that region of our personality from which we can
best discern our duty and fill our place. For the intellect is the most
neutral of all our qualities. Man is swayed by the animal propensities
of his nature; he is swayed by the moral and religious elements of his
nature; but the intellect, by itself, is not a motive power. It is a
_light_; and no one will object to its being kindled except those who,
by that objection, virtually confess that they fear the light. And this
work of kindling is just what the state purposes to do for a child;
leaving his religious convictions to such helps as conscience has
chosen, and his position in life to the decision of circumstances. And
there is no way in which it can show so much impartiality, and exercise
practically the most essential conception of freedom. For thus, as I
have already said, it recognizes a common inheritance--something which
all have--the possession of _mind_--something which is of more
importance than any external condition, for it influences external
condition; (whoever saw an educated community of which anything like a
large fraction were paupers and criminals?) something on which rests the
claim of human freedom; for the charter of man's liberty is in his soul,
not his estate. It says to the poorest child--"You are rich in this one
endowment, before which all external possessions grow dim. No piled-up
wealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual
plane upon which every human be