Antiquity had its schools and teachers; but the latter
were, for the most part, founders of sects in politics, morals,
philosophy, religion, or the habits of daily life; while its schools
were frequented and sustained by those who sought to build on the
civilization of the times such structures as their tastes conceived or
their opinions dictated.
There were not in Athens or Rome, according to the American idea, any
schools for the people; and Carlyle, Brownson, and Emerson, are such
teachers in kind, though not in power and influence, as were Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle. These men were leaders as well as teachers, and
their followers were disciples and controversialists rather than pupils.
But it is not possible for modern leaders in politics, philosophy, and
social life, to rival the ancients. Manual labor is not more divided and
subdivided than is the influence of the human intellect. The newspaper
has inspired every man with the love of self-judgment, and the common
school has qualified him, in some degree, for its exercise. The
ancients, whose names and fame have come down to us, taught by
conversations, discussions, and lectures; the moderns, as Carlyle,
Brownson, and Emerson, by lectures, essays, and reviews. But these
systems are quite inadequate to meet the wants of American civilization.
Indeed, however men of talent may strive, there cannot be another
Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle; for the printing-press has come, and
their occupation has gone.
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