result of the great Education Bill. Millions of unlettered children, and millions more who have just learned enough to thirst for knowledge, are hopefully looking for the provision of national aid during the prescat session of Congress. The children are inspired with hope, and this inspiration has not been of miraculous communication. National aid to education, for months past, has been talked of by anxious parents at the fireside, by zealous teachers in our schools, and has been the theme of conversation all over our land, by men of all trades, callings, and professions, whose interest in the education of our youth is only measured by their knowledge of what will be required of them in future

years.

The true statesman, the one whose mind is properly impressed with the inestimable value of virtuous and intelligent citizens, is also looking for the relief which is proposed in the measure now before Congress.

Need I say that many are the eyes turned toward the national assembly of school-men? This body is composed of those whose official relations to our educational system enable them to fully and clearly understand the very minutiæ of our educational situation, our needs, and the best and only means of supplying them. It is composed, too, of men whose positions of honor and trust entitle them to a respectful hearing by the supreme law-makers of the land. Let our deliberations on this subject be timely, wise, and prudent. Let such memorials be presented and such influences be brought to bear on our Representatives in Congress as may enable them to see as we see, and feel as we feel, on this great question.

To carry out the proposed plan for tem porary aid to education, we have a sufficient surplus in the Treasury. This surplus is now doing no one any good. It should be accomplishing something. It would be difficult to conceive of a more economic measure than to turn this money into the channel of popular education.

Napoleon was once shown, in one of the great cathedrals of France, a number of silver statues. "What are these?" asked the great general. These," answered his guide, " are the twelve Apostles." "Why do you not," said Napoleon, "mold them into francs, and send them out into the world doing good?"

So, were we permitted, in company with our Congressional Representatives, to look upon the enormous surplus now in our Treasury, we should not wait to inquire what it is, but would say to them, Mold the $77,000,000 into the great Educational Bill, and send it forth in showers of blessings upon our drought-stricken fields of public education.

Professor Lovett's paper was very fully discussed by Hon. Albert S. Willis, of Kentucky; Hon. Theodore Nels on, of Michigan; Hon. B. S. Morgan, of West Virginia; Hon. Hubert M. Skinner, of Indiana; A. J. Rickoff, of New York; J. W. Akers, of Iowa; Dr. W. A. Mowry, of Massachusetts; W. B. Counsell, of Alabama; and Hon. John Eaton.

Mr. NELSON spoke as follows:

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: The question before us has been considered and passed upon by a body of men eminently qualified to give it a severe scrutiny and an exhaustive handling-qualified, I say, as well by the prestige of distinguished ability and intelligence, as by the authority of distinguished position and prerogative. The Senate debate upon the Blair Bill, which was before the Forty-eighth Congress, was very instructive and, indeed, remarkable. It is only just to say that Mr. Blair set forth the claims of his celebrated bill in a speech worthy of the occasion and worthy of the cause-a speech which, in its lucid and striking propositions and statements, contains the germ ideas of a most comprehensive and progressive volume on the subject of popular education, whilst in the course of that luminous and searching discussion every aspect and bearing of the proposed measure was profoundly considered, and cautiously, intelligently examined. As might be expected, every essential feature of the bill, as well as its most fundamental idea, was boldly assailed and vigorously, ably defended. Not only was the wisdom of all ages invoked to give weight and dignity to a cause in itself so worthy of exalted rank, but likewise the constitutional argument, and the sectional argument, and the partisan argument, each was brought into the drama of discussion and made to act its part, and that, too, after its kind. And why not in the United States Senate, as well as elsewhere, or anywhere within the borders of the land? Need we be surprised that there was something like an equal display of magnanimity and prejudice, of generous feeling and bitter resentment? that every motive, every argument, every principle of conduct, every maxim of government, noble and ignoble, found utterance and championship in that exalted chamber of legislation and law? Shall we complain that great men are not always immaculate? Have we any right to be dissatisfied when a distinguished Senator shows some loss of temper, or gives an exhibition of morbid spleen, or makes a rather free use of foolish epithets? If such excrescences are hideous, may be they are harmless also. They are the wart on the face of our Cromwell. As a whole, that debate in the United States Senate is worthy of patient study and profound respect. Whoever reads it with attention will find the Damascus blades of logic with which to arm, and the Gibraltar of self-evident truth with which to cover and shield his reasons, whichever attitude toward the subject, in conscience, he feels bound to take.

If, for example, he is a true scholar and philanthropist, with strong, patriotic, and national instincts, he will be grateful that the wisest thoughts and noblest sentiments of the human mind and heart find effective championship in halls too often devoted to mere petty partisan conflicts. Or, if it happens to be true that he is under the domination of quite another set of ideas and sentiments, yet ideas and sentiments

equally powerful to mold his judgment and determine his action; if he feels coursing in his veins the hot blood of the ancient antipathies, which, as an Anglo-Saxon, he has inherited from the days of Queen Elizabeth, he will experience an exquisite thrill of confidence that the memories of Naseby and of Appomattox are surely immortal.

Have we not a right to expect that a United States Senator will approach a great question of this character from the high levels of national welfare? that he will consider first of all, not the peculiar interests of one section of the country, but the common interests of the whole country? in a word, that he will make his obligation to the Nation paramount to his narrower and feebler obligation to a State? It would be wholesome, indeed, if all statesmen felt as Henry Clay said he felt: "I would rather be right than President." Let Brougham's schoolmaster, who is abroad, surely, in our time, do his best to hasten the day (and he can work mightily in that direction) when only the man who is right will find it possible to be President!

However, let us not be too much carried away with our own superb ideals. We live in a matter-of-fact world, and we are all, doubtless, not a little human. Nor can it be justly demanded that a body of educators shall be superior to a body of select statesmen, even when engaged upon a topic which so deeply concerns education. We, too, are bound to consider the matter in its most practical aspects. It is a practical question, indeed, and one beset with some difficulties, and one not to be adjusted in the light of speculative theories or abstract, principles alone. One may be earnestly devoted to the highest good of our common country, and of every part of it, yet sincerely believe that national aid to education is inexpedient. Even more, he may believe that such aid would actually retard and damage the cause which it is designed to advance. It is not against outspoken objections from intelligent conviction that I would utter a word. I only plead, what is the duty of every American citizen, that in forming our convictions we keep in abey ance all feelings which spring from sectional antipathy or race prejudice. A score of years ago some of us were soldiers on the side of the North, and some on the side of the South. That unhappy conflict taught us to respect each other without impairing our self-respect. This, thank God, is a felicity-a sweet, pacific, and beautiful flower, sprung from a soil once burned with fire and drenched with blood. Can scholars afford to be less magnanimous than soldiers? If any one thinks so, let him learn the instinctive generosity of genius and scholarship from a noble precedent, handed down from times more vexed with enmity and faction than our own times have been. When Cromwell came to reckon with his enemies, the Puritan Milton saved the head and estates of the royalist Davenant. Likewise, also, when the avenger of his father's swift and remorseless sentence and doom came to the throne and judgment seat, and made a fierce reprisal of blood, the royalist Davenant saved the head and small worldly wealth of the Puritan Milton.

But to the questi on itself. And first of all, it is clear to me that we should view it in the light of the relation of free schools to free government. These two ideas are interdependent and inseparable. The one cannot exist apart from the other. The intelligent student of history and of current affairs must realize that, even yet, free government in America is somwhat problematical. Measured by the great cycles which bound the life of the older nations of the world, our nation is still in its infancy. We may rationally hope that the experiment which we have inaugurated will succeed, and that free government in this country will endure to the end of time. Yet why suffer our political optimism to blind us to dangers which are even now quite obviously impending? Besides, as free government should be the mildest and most beneficent of all human governments, so it may be the most despotic and diabolical. For an illiterate or a grossly ignorant people, for a people supremely moved and dominated by their superstitions, passions, and prejudices, no form of despotism is so repugnant to genuine liberty as that form which we call democratic, republican, popular, or free. And here is our perii-a peril most real, threatening, and stupendous. For a people intellectually and morally qualified to govern themselves, free government is, no doubt, the ideal state of human society. But let the inspired Milton prophesy, and let the chivalrous Hampden die in behalf of this glorious cause, let the fathers of our own Republic "pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" for the maintenance of this natural right of all men; yet for the individual or the commonwealth, true liberty is no more a birthright or inheritance than true education is a birthright or inheritance. Liberty is an achievement, as learning is an achievement, and as virtue is an achievement. All that the most perfect form of government will do for human freedom is to afford the opportunity to preserve the most favorable conditions for its achievement. The form (that is to say, the sign language which may be used to express either a truth or a lie) of freedom we inherit from our ancestors; but the substance of freedom we acquire and hold by our own self devotion and diligence.

Our form of government is, perhaps, as perfect as the experience aud ingenuity of man qualify us to make it; yet, having respect to the integrity of the nation, they are not all croakers who complain that we need more conscience in the body politic-that we need a greater preponderance of genuine moral conviction amongst the people. Yes, undoubtedly; but let it be more enlightened conscience; let it be a greater preponderance of broadly cultivated moral conviction. And what instrumentalities shall bring these ends to pass? If, under God, free schools cannot save us, nothing human can save us. And here, in a word, is the relation of free schools to free government.

Touching the constitutional objection to national aid to education, it may seem preposterous for a layman to venture an opinion. However, the right of self-preservation has always been recognized as the diviu

est of human rights. Constitutions, also (our own as well as those of other uations), are understood to possess this paramount inherent right. Has the General Government any right, under the Constitution, to appropriate funds for the purposes of education? I give the natural and, I think, invulnerable answer: Yes, if it has any well-defined and urgent necessity. In my own State we have a system of compulsory education, and to that extent we interfere with the liberty of the individual. Upon what ground is this law vindicated? Upon the ground of public necessity. It was enacted for the protection of the State. And the same public necessity which justifies a compulsory tax for the support of education justifies compulsory education itself. The tax-payer has as much reason to complain that the State interferes with his liberty as the parent or pupil to protest that the State interferes with his liberty. Now it is a fair question, whether the nature of our Federal Union is not such that "when one member suffers the whole body suffers." Are not our social and political interests and destiny so interlinked that we must stand or fall as one? In respect to what is most vital to our perpetuity and prosperity as a nation, may not the General Government, and that, too, on the ground of public necessity, deal with the individual State as the State deals with the individual citizen?

But we have no occasion, perhaps, to urge this extreme view of the question. Nor, on the other hand, have we any occasion to answer those constitutional quibbles which are brought forward to obstruct a measure of far-reaching national benefit. It is generally conceded that the letter of the Constitution contains no positive prohibition. Moreover, we are permitted to read the Constitution in a manner "between the lines." Our Constitution has a historical interpretation. It has larger meanings and more definite meanings than really appear in the text. The progress of events since that document was framed origi nally, the vast changes that have passed upon the face of our country, and of its institutions and people, have made this result inevitable. It is not necessary to say whether the ideas of Jefferson or the ideas of Hamilton have obtained ascendancy. Perhaps neither; possibly, in some sense, both. Let it be admitted that, at the origin of our Government, the traditional jealousies of the thirteen States put them in an attitude of mutual hostility, or at least of chronic distrust, and that in forming a "more perfect union" there was meant to be an emphatic assertion of "reserved rights" and an earnest protest against centralization. Many public men of that period were undoubtedly afraid of anything stronger than a defensive league between sovereign States. Let it be admitted even (if any one will have it so) that the founders of our Government meant to form this union of States on the basis of yielding no attribute of sovereignty-that they meant to make the union scarcely more than a defensive league between strictly independent. Commonwealths; yet violent revolutionary changes have taken place since the league was made-at least, we have experienced one tremen