how prejudices arising from differences of language and religion kept
schoolhouses empty and slum children ignorant, while reform schools
and prisons were full. Under these circumstances, thundered the
Steuben farmer, Seward did right in recommending the establishment of
schools in which such children might be instructed by teachers
speaking the same language with themselves, and professing the same
faith.

This was the sort of defence Seward appreciated. His recommendation
had not been the result of carelessness or inadvertence, and, although
well-meaning friends sought to excuse it as such, he resented the
insinuation. "I am only determined the more," he wrote, "to do what
may be in my power to render our system of education as comprehensive
as the interests involved, and to provide for the support of the
glorious superstructure of universal suffrage,--the basis of universal
education."[754] In his defence, Dickinson maintained the excellence
of Seward's suggestion, and it deeply angered the Steuben farmer that
the _Tribune's_ editor, who knew the facts as well as he, did not also
attempt to silence the arguments of the two most influential Lincoln
delegates, who boldly based their opposition, not upon personal
hostility or his advanced position in Republican faith, but upon what
Greeley had known for twenty years to be a perversion of Seward's
language and Seward's motives.

[Footnote 754: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 503.]

In the Secretary's opinion Dickinson's bold defiance of the rules of
grammar and spelling did not weaken his natural intellectual strength;
but Greeley, whom the would-be diplomat, with profane vituperation,
had charged at Chicago with the basest ingratitude,[755] protested
against such an appointment to such an important post. "We have long
known him," said the _Tribune_, "as a skilful farmer, a cunning
politician, and a hearty admirer of Mr. Seward, but never suspected
him of that intimate knowledge of the Spanish language which is almost
indispensable to that country, which, just at this moment, from the
peculiar designs of the Southern rebels, is one of the most important
that the secretary of state has to fill."[756] Dickinson recognised
the odium that would attach to Seward because of the appointment, and
in a characteristic letter he assured the Secretary of State that,
whatever Greeley might say, he need have no fear of his ability to
represent the government efficie