There need be no waste of money, or of the time or power of teachers. As
the public system must everywhere exist, it is a matter of economy to
bring all the children under its influence. The private system never can
educate all; therefore the public system cannot be abandoned, unless we
consent to give up a part of the population to ignorance. It may, then,
be said that the private schools, essential in many cases, ought to give
way whenever the public schools are prepared to do the work; and when
the public schools are so prepared, the existence of private schools
adds their own cost to the necessary cost of popular education.
But we are not to encourage parsimony in education; for parsimony in
this department is not true economy. It is true economy for the state
and for a town to set up and maintain good schools as cheaply as they
can be had, yet at any necessary cost, so only that they be good.
Massachusetts is prosperous and wealthy to-day, respected in evil report
as well as in good, because, faithful to principle and persistent in
courage, she has for more than two hundred years provided for the
education of her children; and now the re-flowing tide of her wealth
from seaboard and cities will bear on its wave to these quiet valleys
and pleasant hill-sides the lovers of agriculture, friends of art,
students of science, and such as worship rural scenes and indulge in
rural sports; but the favored and first-sought spots will be those where
learning has already chosen her seat, and offers to manhood and age the
culture and society which learning only can give, and to childhood and
youth, over and above the training of the best schools, healthful moral
influences, and elements of physical growth and vigor, which ever
distinguish life in the country and among the mountains from life in the
city or on the plain.
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