If the great lesson of self-reliance is to be learned, who is more
likely to acquire it early,--the child of the poor, or the child of the
rich; the child who has most done for him, or the child who is under the
necessity of doing most for himself? Plainly, the latter. Now, while a
system of public instruction in itself cannot be magnified in its
beneficial influences to the poor and to the children of the poor, it is
equally beneficial to the rich in the facility it affords for the
instruction of their children. Is it not worth something to the rich
man, who cannot, from the circumstances of the case, teach self-reliance
around the family hearth, to send his child to school to learn this
lesson with other children, that he may be stimulated, that he may be
provoked to exertions which he would not otherwise have made? For, be it
remembered that in our schools public sentiment is as well marked as in
a college, or a town, or a nation; that it moves forward in the same
way. And the great object of a teacher should be to create a public
sentiment in favor of virtue. There should be some pioneers in favor of
forming a correct public sentiment; and when it is formed it moves on
irresistibly. It is like the river made up of drops from the mountain
side, moving on with more and more power, until everything in its waters
is carried to the destined end.
So in a public school.
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