and our Neros, we might have
delighted in a modern Trajan or an Antonine. Under such a man, the
progress of letters, having proceeded in any thing like the manner that
it has done, we should have had some general system of national
education, which, after the Roman fashion of completeness, would have
traversed the state, with iron step, doubtless even to the remote ends of
barbarian Britain. To say that this would not have been a signal benefit
to mankind would be idle: what we have to say against the despotic system
is, that it absorbs private virtue, and suppresses private endeavour;
that though it may create better machines, it certainly makes worse men.
Now then to bring these imaginings home; for they do concern us closely.
My readers are, to a certain extent, educated; they will have gained by
living in a free state; but if they continue to neglect the welfare of
the great mass, in respect of education, can they say that this, the
first layer of the nation, the "turba Remi," might not almost wish, if
they could comprehend the question, to live under a despot who would
educate them, rather than with free men who do not? Are we to enjoy the
singular freedom of speech and action, which we do enjoy in this country,
and to expect to have no sacrifice to make for it? Is liberty, the first
of possessions, to have no duties corresponding to its invaluable rights?
And, in fine, ought it not to be some drawback on the enjoyment of our
own freedom, if a doubt can come across our minds whether a vast mass of
our fellow citizens might not be the better for living under a despotic
government? These are very serious questions; and the sooner we are
able, with a good conscience, to give a satisfactory answer to them, the
better. Till that time, let no man in this country say that the
education of the people is nothing to him.

But how strange it is that men should require to be urged to this good
work of education. The causing children to be taught is a thing so full
of joy, of love, of hope, that one wonders how such a gladsome path of
benevolence could ever have been unfrequented. The delight of educating
is like that of cultivating near the fruitful Nile, where seed time and
harvest come so close together. And when one looks forward to the
indefinite extension that any efforts in this direction may probably
enjoy, one is apt to feel as if nothing else were important, and to be
inclined to expend all one's energies in