Post by EricH on Aug 26, 2016 18:37:01 GMT -5
from The Catholic Press, works vol. 19, p. 270-74 (link)
[T]he tendency of the press is to bring before an unprepared public questions that can be profitably discussed only before a professional audience. The people need and can receive the results of the most solid learning and the most profound and subtle philosophy, but they can neither perform nor appreciate the processes by which those results are obtained. Hodge and Goody Jones have little ability to follow the discussion of the higher metaphysical questions, or of the more intricate points of theology. The great body of the people are not and cannot be scholars, philosophers, theologians, or statesmen. They must have teachers and masters, and are as helpless without them as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Do what you will, they will follow leaders of some sort, and the modern attempt to make them their own teachers and masters results only in exposing them to a multitude of miserable pretenders, who lead them where there is no pasture, and where the wolves congregate to devour them. You may call this aristocracy, priestcraft, want of respect for the people, what you will; it is a fact as plain as the nose on a man's face, proved by all history, and confirmed by daily experience. There is no use, no sense, no honesty, in attempting to deny or to disguise it. There never was a greater humbug than the modern schemes for introducing equality of education, whether by leveling upwards or by leveling downwards. The order of the world is, the few lead, the many are led; and whether you like it or not, you cannot make it otherwise, and every attempt to make it otherwise only makes the matter worse.
It is strange that our wise men, as they would be thought, do not see this. Go into your political world, and is it not so? What mean, if not, your town, county, state, and national committees, your party organizations, party usages, caucuses, conventions, and nominations prior to elections? If the people are capable of managing for themselves, of having their own leaders, why do you undertake to lead them? Why, when the French republicans had overthrown the monarchy, and proclaimed universal suffrage, did they establish their clubs, and send out their commissioners through all the departments, armed with power to compel the people to vote for a given description of candidates for the national assembly? If they believed either in the right or the capacity of the people to govern themselves, why did they not trust them? Who knows not that the fashionable democracy of the day is a humbug, got up by the miserable demagogues, solely because by it they, instead of king or nobility, may stand a chance of governing the people, and deriving a profit from them? Who knows not that the people are as much led under a democracy as under any other form of government, only by a different and, perhaps, a more numerous, as well as a more hungry and despotic, class of leaders? Who does not know that the despotism your prominent democrats dread is simply the despotism which prevents them from being despots? O, it goes to an honest man's heart to see how the poor people are deceived, duped, to their own destruction!
We speak not in contempt of the people, or in disregard of their claims. God has made it our duty, for his sake, bound us by our allegiance to him, to love the people, to devote ourselves to their service, to live for them, and, if need be, to die for them. There is nothing too good for them. Scholars, philosophers, teachers, magistrates, all are for them, are bound to live and labor for their temporal and spiritual well-being; and they neglect the duties of their state, if they do not. That they often do not is but too lamentably true. The people have been most shamefully, sinfully neglected, in all ages and countries of the world, and their wrongs have cried, and do still cry, aloud to Heaven. The rich, the learned, the great, the powerful, too frequently look upon the possessions Almighty God has given them as if they were given them for their own especial benefit, instead of a sacred trust to be employed in the service of the poor and needy. Their shameful neglect of their duty, their sinful abuse of their trusts, has furnished the occasion to modern radicalism, and given to radicals a pretext for the destructive war they are carrying on against them. But this, though it condemn them, does not justify the radicals, or prove that the people can get on without teachers and rulers. It only proves, that, when their legitimate leaders abuse their trusts, they will grow rebellious and seek a new set of leaders, who will be only less competent and more unfaithful.
Assuming that the people must have leaders, that they cannot dispense with teachers, it is evident that there must be questions which are not proper to be brought before them, not precisely because of their sacredness, but because of their unintelligibleness to the unprepared intellect; because they involve principles which transcend the reach of the undisciplined mind, and require for the right understanding of them preliminary studies which the bulk of mankind do not and cannot make. The people need and may receive the full benefit of law, and yet they cannot all be lawyers; for the law demands a special study, and a long and painful study in those who would be worthy legal practitioners. The same may be said of medicine, and with even more truth of theology. Theology requires a professional study, and men, whatever their genius, natural abilities, and general learning, can only blunder the moment they undertake to treat it, unless they have made it a special study, under able and accomplished professors. Theological science does not come, like Dogberry's reading and writing, by nature, is not a natural instinct, your transcendental young ladies to the contrary notwithstanding. To bring it into the forum, and to discuss it before the populace, is only to divest it of all that transcends the popular understanding.
We have seen this among Protestants. Luther and his associates knew perfectly well that their novelties would be instantly rejected in the schools, scouted by professional theologians, called upon to judge them by the laws of theological science; they therefore appealed to the public, to an unprofessional jury, that is, from science to ignorance, as do and must appeal all innovators. They supposed they obtained a verdict, and they raised the shout of triumph; but their triumph has been, in general terms, the complete destruction among Protestants of theological science, the rejection of all the definitions and distinctions of scholastic theology as unmeaning, the virtual discarding of all the mysteries of faith, and the reduction of the whole Christian doctrine to a vague sentiment, or to the few propositions of natural religion which do not rise above the level of the vulgar. The people, if made arbiters, will always decide that what transcends their understanding is unintelligible, and that what is unintelligible is false, non-existent.
The practice of appealing to the people, in controversies which lie out of their province, has a bad effect on the controversialists themselves. In controversies confined to professional audiences, the controversialists are held in check, are forced to be exact in their statements, and close and rigid in their deductions; for the slightest error, they know, will be detected and exposed. But when the controversy is carried on before the people, who know nothing of the subject but what they learn from the controversialists themselves, and have neither the ability nor the patience to follow step by step a long and closely linked argument, the disputants are tempted to indulge in loose statements, misstatements, and sophistications. Before the professional audience, the question must be discussed on its merits, and each party is obliged to seek for, and confine himself to, the truth; but before a popular audience, the parties, knowing that the tribunal is incompetent to decide the question on its merits, are free, so far as exposure is concerned, to seek only a verdict, and, consequently, to hold themselves free to resort to any methods which will secure it. False assertions and false reasoning, if they will weigh with the jury, will answer their purpose as well as truth. One party may detect the falsehood or the sophistry of the other, but what of that? How often have Catholics detected and exposed the falsehoods and sophistries of Protestants! But what has it availed? The Protestant appealed to the people, reasserted his falsehood, reproduced his sophistry, and triumphed.
The practice, also, has a bad effect on the people. It places them in a false position, and makes them judges where they should be learners. It destroys the docility of their dispositions, the loyalty of their hearts, and makes them proud, conceited, arrogant, turbulent, and seditious. It throws them into a state in which there is no good for them, in which Almighty God himself cannot help them, if he respects their free-will, if he does not convert them into machines, and annihilate them as men. We see this in the present state of the Protestant world. The child is hardly breeched before he is wiser than his parents, and regards it as a violation of his natural rights that he should be required to obey them. The pert youth, with the soft down on his chin, has no idea that he shows any lack of modesty in telling a Webster or a Calhoun that he differs from him in his political views; or in saying to the most grave and learned divine, "Sir, we differ in opinion, and are not likely to agree." Hodge sits in judgment on the Angel of the Schools, and Goody Jones instructs her minister in the interpretation of Scripture. The pretty miss, hardly in her teens, never once doubts that she has discovered that all mankind have hitherto been wholly in the wrong, and that nobody ever had a clear and comprehensive view of the truth in morals, politics, or religion, till she planted herself on her young instincts, and mastered all things. Sentiment is placed above reason, even by your great Dr. Bushnell; instinct is declared the great teacher of wisdom, by your greater Emerson, said to be the greatest man in America; and Alcott and Wordsworth tell you to sit down by the cradle, and look into Baby's eyes, if you would learn the secrets of the universe. It requires no great wisdom to sneer at what transcends our own limited capacity, no great knowledge to reject as non-existent whatever appears not within the circle of our own mole-eyed vision, or to forego all the accumulations of the race, to strip ourselves naked, and to run through the streets of the city calling out to the people to look and see what marvelous progress we have made, how far we have advanced on our predecessors.
from Authority in Matters of Faith, Works vol. 8, pp. 596-98 (link)
We see in the absurdities into which a man like Mr. Olmstead, possibly a very respectable lawyer, falls the moment he steps out of his profession, the importance of giving our educated young men a sound and thorough philosophical education. Out of our Catholic schools and colleges, with non-Catholics there is absolutely nothing worthy of the name of philosophy learned or taught. Even in our Catholic schools and colleges the philosophy taught needs revising, or at least needs to be more thoroughly taught. Our professors, with rare individual exceptions, fall into a routine, and do little or nothing to quicken the minds of their pupils, or to create in them a love for philosophical studies. Then, what can a boy seventeen or eighteen years of age learn of philosophy in the course of one year, and half of that year taken up with other studies? The blame is not all with the college; it is chiefly with the parents who will not leave their sons long enough in college to go through the necessary curriculum. Our young men graduate with only a slight smattering of philosophy, not enough to serve any purpose in active life, and that little, save a few technicalities, they lose in a year or two. Parents must correct their error, and leave their sons in the college long enough to complete a respectable course of study. If they are too poor for that, let them keep their sons, especially the dunces, at home. Better to have no learning, than to be only half-learned. Let our colleges also lengthen their coarse of studies, and give, at least, two years more to philosophy.
We say "especially the dunces." It is a great mistake on the part of parents to suppose that all children are capable of profiting by a liberal education, or to seek to bring up all their sons to learning, as it is said. Some boys, if brought up to the pursuit, may make excellent farmers, mechanics, or traders, who would only be spoiled for life, if sent to college and devoted to literature and science. Our colleges should refuse matriculation to boys of only ordinary abilities, and who give no promise of superior aptitude for learning. Give to all the education or instruction, as far as they are capable of receiving it, needed for the ordinary avocations of life; but reserve your colleges and universities for those only who give promise of superior abilities, of parts more than ordinarily bright, and, in training them, follow, and allow them to follow, their natural aptitude. Some boys have a natural genius for languages, some for mathematics, some for history, some for antiquarian research, some for polite literature, some for the physical sciences, and a few for philosophy and theology. Do not thwart their natural genius, or attempt to train them for pursuits or professions for which they have no natural aptitude, and in which it is pretty sure beforehand that they can never rise above respectable mediocrity. All college-bred men are not competent to teach philosophy.
We, as Catholics, want a grand Catholic University into which the students who have taken their degree of A. B., and have distinguished themselves in our existing colleges, may enter and continue under able professors their studies of predilection for four, six, or eight years longer. Then we may have scholars, learned men, scientific men, philosophers, theologians, not unworthy of the name, to the great service of the church and benefit to American society, especially to our Catholic community. We must bear in mind that scholars are trained for the public good, not for their private advantage; and that the thorough education of the few is of vastly more importance to the community than the half education of the many, which is all the many in any nation or country do or can receive.
from American Literature, Works vol. 19, pp. 218-19 (link)
Scholars, educated men, in the fullest and highest sense of the word, are always a want, a necessity, and in no country more than in our own; for in no country have the mass of the people so direct a voice in public affairs. It is all-important that there should be with us a large and highly educated class, far better educated than, under any possible circumstances, the bulk of the people can be, from which may be selected persons qualified to fill places of trust and influence. Too much attention cannot be paid to our higher schools and colleges. The best, in fact, the only real, encouragement we can extend to American literature is to elevate the character of our colleges and universities, to place instruction on a more solid basis, and to make the course of studies more complete and more thorough. More time should be spent in the collegiate course, and young men should not be permitted to go forth as having finished their studies, when they are only able to commence them with credit. Let an effort be made to send out from our colleges and universities riper and more thoroughly disciplined scholars. Let the people learn, if they can learn any thing, that a man is not fitted for high public trusts in the church, the state, or the army, in proportion to his want of education; and let the senseless babble, of which we hear so much, about self-education and self-educated men, cease, and American literature will soon be placed on a solid and respectable footing.
It is well, no doubt, to look after the education of the people, and to introduce and sustain as perfect a system of common schools as can be devised; but there is no greater folly than that of relying solely or chiefly on common-school education. Do your best, with all your provisions and appliances, you cannot make the bulk of the people even tolerable scholars. The welfare of the many is unquestionably to be sought; but it must needs be sought by the few, and the chief concern of a nation seeking the welfare of the many is therefore the education of the few. For these the highest standard of scholarship is necessary, and the most liberal provisions should be made. It would be well, if we had somewhere in the country a university proper, a university worthy of the name, to which the brightest and most promising of our youths, after graduating at our colleges, might be sent, and where they might reside some six or seven years and continue their studies. Such a university would soon raise the standard of scholarship, and in time we should have, in every department of literary, scientific, and public life, scholars worthy of the name, — masters, not mere pupils, who would be a credit to their age and country, and from whom would descend a most salutary influence upon the people below them.
from Liberal Studies, Works vol. 19, pp. 444-45 (link)
I complain not that common schools are universal, I complain not that they do not teach more branches and turn out more thorough scholars. They already attempt too much, more than is requisite for the mass of the people, more than the great body of our children can study to any advantage. Common schools are well enough in their place, though less important than our age would have us believe. They can impart as much instruction as the people, considering their ordinary duties and avocations in life, can acquire; but they cannot suffice for the want of a nation. You can never make all the people scholars, give to all a liberal training — not, if you will, for lack of ability on their part, but for lack of opportunity, and for the necessary incompatibility between such training and the menial offices of life, which require the constant labor and application of the great majority of every community. These offices unfit one for liberal studies, and liberal studies unfit one for them. Give, if it were possible, to the whole community the education, the culture, the refinement, and elevated manners and tastes of the few, and without which a nation remains uncivilized, the great business of life would come to a stand-still, and your nation would be like an army without privates, or a ship without common sailors. On the other hand to reduce all education and all culture to the level of your common schools, is to have no officers, none qualified to take the command and fill the higher offices of civilized society. The Mexican war taught our democratic statesmen the value of West Point, and we shall not very soon see again ignorant civilians chosen in preference to trained soldiers, to command our troops. The great bulk of every community always has depended and always will depend on the leadership in all things of the few.
[T]he tendency of the press is to bring before an unprepared public questions that can be profitably discussed only before a professional audience. The people need and can receive the results of the most solid learning and the most profound and subtle philosophy, but they can neither perform nor appreciate the processes by which those results are obtained. Hodge and Goody Jones have little ability to follow the discussion of the higher metaphysical questions, or of the more intricate points of theology. The great body of the people are not and cannot be scholars, philosophers, theologians, or statesmen. They must have teachers and masters, and are as helpless without them as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Do what you will, they will follow leaders of some sort, and the modern attempt to make them their own teachers and masters results only in exposing them to a multitude of miserable pretenders, who lead them where there is no pasture, and where the wolves congregate to devour them. You may call this aristocracy, priestcraft, want of respect for the people, what you will; it is a fact as plain as the nose on a man's face, proved by all history, and confirmed by daily experience. There is no use, no sense, no honesty, in attempting to deny or to disguise it. There never was a greater humbug than the modern schemes for introducing equality of education, whether by leveling upwards or by leveling downwards. The order of the world is, the few lead, the many are led; and whether you like it or not, you cannot make it otherwise, and every attempt to make it otherwise only makes the matter worse.
It is strange that our wise men, as they would be thought, do not see this. Go into your political world, and is it not so? What mean, if not, your town, county, state, and national committees, your party organizations, party usages, caucuses, conventions, and nominations prior to elections? If the people are capable of managing for themselves, of having their own leaders, why do you undertake to lead them? Why, when the French republicans had overthrown the monarchy, and proclaimed universal suffrage, did they establish their clubs, and send out their commissioners through all the departments, armed with power to compel the people to vote for a given description of candidates for the national assembly? If they believed either in the right or the capacity of the people to govern themselves, why did they not trust them? Who knows not that the fashionable democracy of the day is a humbug, got up by the miserable demagogues, solely because by it they, instead of king or nobility, may stand a chance of governing the people, and deriving a profit from them? Who knows not that the people are as much led under a democracy as under any other form of government, only by a different and, perhaps, a more numerous, as well as a more hungry and despotic, class of leaders? Who does not know that the despotism your prominent democrats dread is simply the despotism which prevents them from being despots? O, it goes to an honest man's heart to see how the poor people are deceived, duped, to their own destruction!
We speak not in contempt of the people, or in disregard of their claims. God has made it our duty, for his sake, bound us by our allegiance to him, to love the people, to devote ourselves to their service, to live for them, and, if need be, to die for them. There is nothing too good for them. Scholars, philosophers, teachers, magistrates, all are for them, are bound to live and labor for their temporal and spiritual well-being; and they neglect the duties of their state, if they do not. That they often do not is but too lamentably true. The people have been most shamefully, sinfully neglected, in all ages and countries of the world, and their wrongs have cried, and do still cry, aloud to Heaven. The rich, the learned, the great, the powerful, too frequently look upon the possessions Almighty God has given them as if they were given them for their own especial benefit, instead of a sacred trust to be employed in the service of the poor and needy. Their shameful neglect of their duty, their sinful abuse of their trusts, has furnished the occasion to modern radicalism, and given to radicals a pretext for the destructive war they are carrying on against them. But this, though it condemn them, does not justify the radicals, or prove that the people can get on without teachers and rulers. It only proves, that, when their legitimate leaders abuse their trusts, they will grow rebellious and seek a new set of leaders, who will be only less competent and more unfaithful.
Assuming that the people must have leaders, that they cannot dispense with teachers, it is evident that there must be questions which are not proper to be brought before them, not precisely because of their sacredness, but because of their unintelligibleness to the unprepared intellect; because they involve principles which transcend the reach of the undisciplined mind, and require for the right understanding of them preliminary studies which the bulk of mankind do not and cannot make. The people need and may receive the full benefit of law, and yet they cannot all be lawyers; for the law demands a special study, and a long and painful study in those who would be worthy legal practitioners. The same may be said of medicine, and with even more truth of theology. Theology requires a professional study, and men, whatever their genius, natural abilities, and general learning, can only blunder the moment they undertake to treat it, unless they have made it a special study, under able and accomplished professors. Theological science does not come, like Dogberry's reading and writing, by nature, is not a natural instinct, your transcendental young ladies to the contrary notwithstanding. To bring it into the forum, and to discuss it before the populace, is only to divest it of all that transcends the popular understanding.
We have seen this among Protestants. Luther and his associates knew perfectly well that their novelties would be instantly rejected in the schools, scouted by professional theologians, called upon to judge them by the laws of theological science; they therefore appealed to the public, to an unprofessional jury, that is, from science to ignorance, as do and must appeal all innovators. They supposed they obtained a verdict, and they raised the shout of triumph; but their triumph has been, in general terms, the complete destruction among Protestants of theological science, the rejection of all the definitions and distinctions of scholastic theology as unmeaning, the virtual discarding of all the mysteries of faith, and the reduction of the whole Christian doctrine to a vague sentiment, or to the few propositions of natural religion which do not rise above the level of the vulgar. The people, if made arbiters, will always decide that what transcends their understanding is unintelligible, and that what is unintelligible is false, non-existent.
The practice of appealing to the people, in controversies which lie out of their province, has a bad effect on the controversialists themselves. In controversies confined to professional audiences, the controversialists are held in check, are forced to be exact in their statements, and close and rigid in their deductions; for the slightest error, they know, will be detected and exposed. But when the controversy is carried on before the people, who know nothing of the subject but what they learn from the controversialists themselves, and have neither the ability nor the patience to follow step by step a long and closely linked argument, the disputants are tempted to indulge in loose statements, misstatements, and sophistications. Before the professional audience, the question must be discussed on its merits, and each party is obliged to seek for, and confine himself to, the truth; but before a popular audience, the parties, knowing that the tribunal is incompetent to decide the question on its merits, are free, so far as exposure is concerned, to seek only a verdict, and, consequently, to hold themselves free to resort to any methods which will secure it. False assertions and false reasoning, if they will weigh with the jury, will answer their purpose as well as truth. One party may detect the falsehood or the sophistry of the other, but what of that? How often have Catholics detected and exposed the falsehoods and sophistries of Protestants! But what has it availed? The Protestant appealed to the people, reasserted his falsehood, reproduced his sophistry, and triumphed.
The practice, also, has a bad effect on the people. It places them in a false position, and makes them judges where they should be learners. It destroys the docility of their dispositions, the loyalty of their hearts, and makes them proud, conceited, arrogant, turbulent, and seditious. It throws them into a state in which there is no good for them, in which Almighty God himself cannot help them, if he respects their free-will, if he does not convert them into machines, and annihilate them as men. We see this in the present state of the Protestant world. The child is hardly breeched before he is wiser than his parents, and regards it as a violation of his natural rights that he should be required to obey them. The pert youth, with the soft down on his chin, has no idea that he shows any lack of modesty in telling a Webster or a Calhoun that he differs from him in his political views; or in saying to the most grave and learned divine, "Sir, we differ in opinion, and are not likely to agree." Hodge sits in judgment on the Angel of the Schools, and Goody Jones instructs her minister in the interpretation of Scripture. The pretty miss, hardly in her teens, never once doubts that she has discovered that all mankind have hitherto been wholly in the wrong, and that nobody ever had a clear and comprehensive view of the truth in morals, politics, or religion, till she planted herself on her young instincts, and mastered all things. Sentiment is placed above reason, even by your great Dr. Bushnell; instinct is declared the great teacher of wisdom, by your greater Emerson, said to be the greatest man in America; and Alcott and Wordsworth tell you to sit down by the cradle, and look into Baby's eyes, if you would learn the secrets of the universe. It requires no great wisdom to sneer at what transcends our own limited capacity, no great knowledge to reject as non-existent whatever appears not within the circle of our own mole-eyed vision, or to forego all the accumulations of the race, to strip ourselves naked, and to run through the streets of the city calling out to the people to look and see what marvelous progress we have made, how far we have advanced on our predecessors.
from Authority in Matters of Faith, Works vol. 8, pp. 596-98 (link)
We see in the absurdities into which a man like Mr. Olmstead, possibly a very respectable lawyer, falls the moment he steps out of his profession, the importance of giving our educated young men a sound and thorough philosophical education. Out of our Catholic schools and colleges, with non-Catholics there is absolutely nothing worthy of the name of philosophy learned or taught. Even in our Catholic schools and colleges the philosophy taught needs revising, or at least needs to be more thoroughly taught. Our professors, with rare individual exceptions, fall into a routine, and do little or nothing to quicken the minds of their pupils, or to create in them a love for philosophical studies. Then, what can a boy seventeen or eighteen years of age learn of philosophy in the course of one year, and half of that year taken up with other studies? The blame is not all with the college; it is chiefly with the parents who will not leave their sons long enough in college to go through the necessary curriculum. Our young men graduate with only a slight smattering of philosophy, not enough to serve any purpose in active life, and that little, save a few technicalities, they lose in a year or two. Parents must correct their error, and leave their sons in the college long enough to complete a respectable course of study. If they are too poor for that, let them keep their sons, especially the dunces, at home. Better to have no learning, than to be only half-learned. Let our colleges also lengthen their coarse of studies, and give, at least, two years more to philosophy.
We say "especially the dunces." It is a great mistake on the part of parents to suppose that all children are capable of profiting by a liberal education, or to seek to bring up all their sons to learning, as it is said. Some boys, if brought up to the pursuit, may make excellent farmers, mechanics, or traders, who would only be spoiled for life, if sent to college and devoted to literature and science. Our colleges should refuse matriculation to boys of only ordinary abilities, and who give no promise of superior aptitude for learning. Give to all the education or instruction, as far as they are capable of receiving it, needed for the ordinary avocations of life; but reserve your colleges and universities for those only who give promise of superior abilities, of parts more than ordinarily bright, and, in training them, follow, and allow them to follow, their natural aptitude. Some boys have a natural genius for languages, some for mathematics, some for history, some for antiquarian research, some for polite literature, some for the physical sciences, and a few for philosophy and theology. Do not thwart their natural genius, or attempt to train them for pursuits or professions for which they have no natural aptitude, and in which it is pretty sure beforehand that they can never rise above respectable mediocrity. All college-bred men are not competent to teach philosophy.
We, as Catholics, want a grand Catholic University into which the students who have taken their degree of A. B., and have distinguished themselves in our existing colleges, may enter and continue under able professors their studies of predilection for four, six, or eight years longer. Then we may have scholars, learned men, scientific men, philosophers, theologians, not unworthy of the name, to the great service of the church and benefit to American society, especially to our Catholic community. We must bear in mind that scholars are trained for the public good, not for their private advantage; and that the thorough education of the few is of vastly more importance to the community than the half education of the many, which is all the many in any nation or country do or can receive.
from American Literature, Works vol. 19, pp. 218-19 (link)
Scholars, educated men, in the fullest and highest sense of the word, are always a want, a necessity, and in no country more than in our own; for in no country have the mass of the people so direct a voice in public affairs. It is all-important that there should be with us a large and highly educated class, far better educated than, under any possible circumstances, the bulk of the people can be, from which may be selected persons qualified to fill places of trust and influence. Too much attention cannot be paid to our higher schools and colleges. The best, in fact, the only real, encouragement we can extend to American literature is to elevate the character of our colleges and universities, to place instruction on a more solid basis, and to make the course of studies more complete and more thorough. More time should be spent in the collegiate course, and young men should not be permitted to go forth as having finished their studies, when they are only able to commence them with credit. Let an effort be made to send out from our colleges and universities riper and more thoroughly disciplined scholars. Let the people learn, if they can learn any thing, that a man is not fitted for high public trusts in the church, the state, or the army, in proportion to his want of education; and let the senseless babble, of which we hear so much, about self-education and self-educated men, cease, and American literature will soon be placed on a solid and respectable footing.
It is well, no doubt, to look after the education of the people, and to introduce and sustain as perfect a system of common schools as can be devised; but there is no greater folly than that of relying solely or chiefly on common-school education. Do your best, with all your provisions and appliances, you cannot make the bulk of the people even tolerable scholars. The welfare of the many is unquestionably to be sought; but it must needs be sought by the few, and the chief concern of a nation seeking the welfare of the many is therefore the education of the few. For these the highest standard of scholarship is necessary, and the most liberal provisions should be made. It would be well, if we had somewhere in the country a university proper, a university worthy of the name, to which the brightest and most promising of our youths, after graduating at our colleges, might be sent, and where they might reside some six or seven years and continue their studies. Such a university would soon raise the standard of scholarship, and in time we should have, in every department of literary, scientific, and public life, scholars worthy of the name, — masters, not mere pupils, who would be a credit to their age and country, and from whom would descend a most salutary influence upon the people below them.
from Liberal Studies, Works vol. 19, pp. 444-45 (link)
I complain not that common schools are universal, I complain not that they do not teach more branches and turn out more thorough scholars. They already attempt too much, more than is requisite for the mass of the people, more than the great body of our children can study to any advantage. Common schools are well enough in their place, though less important than our age would have us believe. They can impart as much instruction as the people, considering their ordinary duties and avocations in life, can acquire; but they cannot suffice for the want of a nation. You can never make all the people scholars, give to all a liberal training — not, if you will, for lack of ability on their part, but for lack of opportunity, and for the necessary incompatibility between such training and the menial offices of life, which require the constant labor and application of the great majority of every community. These offices unfit one for liberal studies, and liberal studies unfit one for them. Give, if it were possible, to the whole community the education, the culture, the refinement, and elevated manners and tastes of the few, and without which a nation remains uncivilized, the great business of life would come to a stand-still, and your nation would be like an army without privates, or a ship without common sailors. On the other hand to reduce all education and all culture to the level of your common schools, is to have no officers, none qualified to take the command and fill the higher offices of civilized society. The Mexican war taught our democratic statesmen the value of West Point, and we shall not very soon see again ignorant civilians chosen in preference to trained soldiers, to command our troops. The great bulk of every community always has depended and always will depend on the leadership in all things of the few.