an education equal to a good common school
education, to rise from grade to grade until he should obtain the berth
of an overseer, and that, in making promotions, as a general thing, it
would be unnecessary to make inquiry as to the education of the young
men from whom you would select. Very seldom indeed, he says, would an
uneducated young man rise to "_a better place and better pay_. Young men
who expect to resort to manufacturing establishments for employment, can
not prize too highly a good education. _It will give them standing among
their associates, and be the means of promotion among their employers._"

The final remark of this gentleman, in a lengthy letter, showing the
advantages of education in a pecuniary, social, and moral point of view,
is, that "_those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly
goods are deeply interested in this subject, as one of mere insurance_;
that the most effectual way of making insurance on their property would
be _to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of
common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and
constituting it a police more effectual than peace officers and
prisons_." By so doing he thinks they would bestow a benefaction upon
those who, from the accident of birth or parentage, are subjected to the
privations and temptations of poverty, and would do much to remove the
prejudice and to strengthen the bands of union between the different and
extreme portions of society. He very justly regards it a wise provision
of Providence which connects so intimately, and, as he thinks, so
indissolubly, the greatest good of the many with the highest interest of
the few; or, in other words, which unites into one brotherhood all the
members of the community, and in the existing partnership connects
inseparably the interests of Labor and Capital.[40]

[40] The New York Free School State Convention, held in Syracuse the
10th and 11th of July inst. (1850), _unanimously_ adopted an Address to
the People of the State, written by Horace Greeley, in which the
following passage occurs, inculcating the same sentiment: "Property is
deeply interested in the Education of All. There is no farm, no bank, no
mill, no shop--unless it be a grog-shop--which is not more valuable and
more profitable to its owner if located among a well-educated than if
surrounded by an ignorant population. _Simply as a matter of interest,
we hold it t