They cannot stand,--such has been the experience in Massachusetts,--they
cannot stand by the side of a good system of public education. Yet where
the population is sparse, where there is not property sufficient to
enable the people to establish a high school, then an endowed school may
properly come in to make up the deficiency, to supply the means of
education to which the public wealth, at the present moment, is unequal.
Endowed institutions very properly, also, give a professional education
to the people. At this moment we cannot look to the public to give that
education which is purely professional. But what we do look to the
public for is this: to furnish the means of education to the children of
the whole people, without any reference to social, pecuniary, political,
or religious distinctions, so that every person may have a preliminary
education sufficient for the ordinary business of life.
It is said that the means of education are better in an endowed
academy, or in an endowed free school, than they can be in a public
school. What is meant by _means_ of education? I understand that, first
and chiefly, as extraneous means of education, we must look to a correct
public sentiment, which shall animate and influence the teacher, which
shall give direction to the school, which shall furnish the necessary
public funds. An endowed free academy can have none of these things
permanently.
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