nterests. A brief discussion of the subject,
therefore, can never be entirely out of place.

Before proceeding to the direct argument, let me notice some of the most
common objections.

It is a not uncommon opinion, that the business of education should be
left, like other kinds of business, to the laws of trade. It is said if
a carpenter is wanted in any community, or a blacksmith, or a tailor, or
a lawyer, or a doctor, carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors, lawyers, and
doctors will make their appearance. If a store is wanted, a store will
spring up. Why not a school-house? Those who use this argument forget
the essential difference between the two classes of wants to be
supplied. All men equally feel the distress, if naked, or hungry, or
sick, or suffering from any material want. The poor man, no less than
the rich, feels the pinchings of hunger, and will exert himself to
remedy the evil. The sick man, even more than the well, appreciates the
value of medicine and the necessity of a physician. Not so in the matter
of knowledge. A man must himself be educated, to understand the value of
education. There are exceptions, of course. Yet it is substantially
true, that the want of education is not one of those felt and pinching
necessities that compel men's attention, and that consequently may be
left to shift for themselves. A man who has himself enjoyed the blessing
of a good education, expects to provide schools for his children, as
much as he expects to provide for them food and clothing. The wants of
their minds are to him pressing realities, as much as are the wants of
their bodies. Not so with the ignorant and debased neighbors, who live
within stone's throw of his dwelling. They, from their own experience,
know nothing better, and are quite content, both for themselves and
their children, to live on in the debased condition in which we see
them. If these wretched creatures are ever moved to seek a higher style
of living and being, the movement must originate outside of themselves.
It is a case in which the man of higher advantages must think and act
for those below him. It is a case in which people have a pressing need
without knowing it, and in which consequently the laws of supply and
demand do not meet the emergency.

Another common opinion on this subject is that private enterprise is
adequate to meet the want. Private enterprise in education is not
indeed to be discarded. Where the community as a whole, in its or