North America Volume I Part 15

a lady said to me in one of the States soon after my arrival in America. "Pardon me," I answered, "I think we are doing much, perhaps too much. At any rate we are doing something." I then explained to her how Miss Faithfull had inst.i.tuted a printing establishment in London; how all the work in that concern was done by females, except such heavy tasks as those for which women could not be fitted, and I handed to her one of Miss Faithfull's cards. "Ah," said my American friend, "poor creatures! I have no doubt their very flesh will be worked off their bones." I thought this a little unjust on her part; but nevertheless it occurred to me as an answer not unfit to be made by some other lady,--by some woman who had not already advocated the increased employment of women. Let Miss Faithfull look to that. Not that she will work the flesh off her young women's bones, or allow such terrible consequences to take place in Coram-street; not that she or that those connected with her in that enterprise will do aught but good to those employed therein. It will not even be said of her individually, or of her partners, that they have worked the flesh off women's bones; but may it not come to this, that when the tasks now done by men have been s.h.i.+fted to the shoulders of women, women themselves will so complain. May it not go further, and come even to this, that women will have cause for such complaint. I do not think that such a result will come, because I do not think that the object desired by those who are active in the matter will be attained. Men, as a general rule among civilized nations, have elected to earn their own bread and the bread of the women also, and from this resolve on their part I do not think that they will be beaten off.

We know that Mrs. Dall, an American lady, has taken up this subject, and has written a book on it, in which great good sense and honesty of purpose are shown. Mrs. Dall is a strong advocate for the increased employment of women, and I, with great deference, disagree with her. I allude to her book now because she has pointed out, I think very strongly, the great reason why women do not engage themselves advantageously in trade pursuits. She by no means overpraises her own s.e.x, and openly declares that young women will not consent to place themselves in fair compet.i.tion with men. They will not undergo the labour and servitude of long study at their trades. They will not give themselves up to an apprentices.h.i.+p. They will not enter upon their tasks as though they were to be the tasks of their lives. They may have the same physical and mental apt.i.tudes for learning a trade as men, but they have not the same devotion to the pursuit, and will not bind themselves to it thoroughly as men do. In all which I quite agree with Mrs. Dall; and the English of it is,--that the young women want to get married.

G.o.d forbid that they should not so want. Indeed G.o.d has forbidden in a very express way that there should be any lack of such a desire on the part of women. There has of late years arisen a feeling among ma.s.ses of the best of our English ladies that this feminine propensity should be checked. We are told that unmarried women may be respectable, which we always knew; that they may be useful, which we also acknowledge,--thinking still that if married they would be more useful; and that they may be happy, which we trust,--feeling confident however that they might in another position be more happy.

But the question is not only as to the respectability, usefulness, and happiness of womankind, but as to that of men also. If women can do without marriage, can men do so? And if not, how are the men to get wives if the women elect to remain single?

It will be thought that I am treating the subject as though it were simply jocose, but I beg to a.s.sure my reader that such is not my intention. It certainly is the fact that that disinclination to an apprentices.h.i.+p and unwillingness to bear the long training for a trade, of which Mrs. Dall complains on the part of young women, arise from the fact, that they have other hopes with which such apprentices.h.i.+ps would jar; and it is also certain that if such disinclination be overcome on the part of any great number, it must be overcome by the destruction or banishment of such hopes. The question is, whether would good or evil result from such a change? It is often said that whatever difficulty a woman may have in getting a husband, no man need encounter difficulty in finding a wife. But in spite of this seeming fact, I think it must be allowed that if women are withdrawn from the marriage market, men must be withdrawn from it also to the same extent.

In any broad view of this matter we are bound to look, not on any individual case, and the possible remedies for such cases, but on the position in the world occupied by women in general; on the general happiness and welfare of the aggregate feminine world, and perhaps also a little on the general happiness and welfare of the aggregate male world. When ladies and gentlemen advocate the right of women to employment, they are taking very different ground from that on which stand those less extensive philanthropists who exert themselves for the benefit of distressed needlewomen, for instance, or for the alleviation of the more bitter misery of governesses. The two questions are in fact absolutely antagonistic to each other. The rights-of-women advocate is doing his best to create that position for women, from the possible misfortunes of which the friend of the needlewomen is struggling to relieve them. The one is endeavouring to throw work from off the shoulders of men on to the shoulders of women, and the other is striving to lessen the burden which women are already bearing. Of course it is good to relieve distress in individual cases. That Song of the s.h.i.+rt, which I regard as poetry of the immortal kind, has done an amount of good infinitely wider than poor Hood ever ventured to hope. Of all such efforts I would speak not only with respect, but with loving admiration. But of those whose efforts are made to spread work more widely among women, to call upon them to make for us our watches, to print our books, to sit at our desks as clerks, and to add up our accounts; much as I may respect the individual operators in such a movement, I can express no admiration for their judgment.

I have seen women with ropes round their necks drawing a harrow over ploughed ground. No one will, I suppose, say that they approve of that. But it would not have shocked me to see men drawing a harrow. I should have thought it slow, unprofitable work, but my feelings would not have been hurt. There must, therefore, be some limit; but if we men teach ourselves to believe that work is good for women, where is the limit to be drawn, and who shall draw it? It is true that there is now no actually defined limit. There is much work that is commonly open to both s.e.xes. Personal domestic attendance is so, and the attendance in shops. The use of the needle is shared between men and women, and few, I take it, know where the sempstress ends and where the tailor begins. In many trades a woman can be, and very often is, the owner and manager of the business. Painting is as much open to women as to men; as also is literature. There can be no defined limit; but nevertheless there is at present a quasi limit, which the rights-of-women advocates wish to move, and so to move that women shall do more work and not less. A woman now could not well be a cab-driver in London; but are these advocates sure that no woman will be a cab-driver when success has attended their efforts? And would they like to see a woman driving a cab? For my part I confess I do not like to see a woman acting as road-keeper on a French railway.

I have seen a woman acting as ostler at a public stage in Ireland.

I knew the circ.u.mstances,--how her husband had become ill and incapable, and how she had been allowed to earn the wages; but nevertheless the sight was to me disagreeable, and seemed, as far as it went, to degrade the s.e.x. Chivalry has been very active in raising women from the hard and hardening tasks of the world, and through this action they have become soft, tender, and virtuous. It seems to me that they of whom I am now speaking are desirous of undoing what chivalry has done.

The argument used is of course plain enough. It is said that women are left dest.i.tute in the world,--dest.i.tute unless they can be self-dependent, and that to women should be given the same open access to wages that men possess, in order that they may be as self-dependent as men. Why should a young woman, for whom no father is able to provide, not enjoy those means of provision which are open to a young man so circ.u.mstanced? But I think the answer is very simple. The young man under the happiest circ.u.mstances which may befall him is bound to earn his bread. The young woman is only so bound when happy circ.u.mstances do not befall her. Should we endeavour to make the recurrence of unhappy circ.u.mstances more general or less so? What does any tradesman, any professional man, any mechanic wish for his children? Is it not this, that his sons shall go forth and earn their bread, and that his daughters shall remain with him till they are married? Is not that the mother's wish? Is it not notorious that such is the wish of us all as to our daughters? In advocating the rights of women it is of other men's girls that we think, never of our own.

But, nevertheless, what shall we do for those women who must earn their bread by their own work? Whatever we do, do not let us wilfully increase their number. By opening trades to women, by making them printers, watchmakers, accountants, or what not, we shall not simply relieve those who must now earn their bread by some such work or else starve. It will not be within our power to stop ourselves exactly at a certain point; to arrange that those women who under existing circ.u.mstances may now be in want, shall be thus placed beyond want; but that no others shall be affected. Men, I fear, will be too willing to relieve themselves of some portion of their present burden, should the world's altered ways enable them to do so. At present a lawyer's clerk may earn perhaps his two guineas a week, and he with his wife lives on that in fair comfort. But if his wife, as well as he, has been brought up as a lawyer's clerk, he will look to her also for some amount of wages. I doubt whether the two guineas would be much increased, but I do not doubt at all that the woman's position would be injured.

It seems to me that in discussing this subject, philanthropists fail to take hold of the right end of the argument. Money returns from work are very good, and work itself is good, as bringing such returns and occupying both body and mind; but the world's work is very hard, and workmen are too often overdriven. The question seems to me to be this,--of all this work have the men got on their own backs too heavy a share for them to bear, and should they seek relief by throwing more of it upon women? It is the rights of man that we are in fact debating. These watches are weary to make, and this type is troublesome to set. We have battles to fight and speeches to make, and our hands altogether are too full. The women are idle,--many of them. They shall make the watches for us and set the type; and when they have done that, why should they not make nails as they do sometimes in Worcesters.h.i.+re, or clean horses, or drive the cabs? They have had an easy time of it for these years past, but we'll change that. And then it would come to pa.s.s that with ropes round their necks the women would be drawing harrows across the fields.

I don't think this will come to pa.s.s. The women generally do know when they are well off, and are not particularly anxious to accept the philanthropy proffered to them;--as Mrs. Dall says, they do not wish to bind themselves as apprentices to independent money-making.

This cry has been louder in America than with us, but even in America it has not been efficacious for much. There is in the States, no doubt, a sort of hankering after increased influence, a desire for that prominence of position which men attain by loud voices and brazen foreheads, a desire in the female heart to be up and doing something, if the female heart only knew what; but even in the States it has hardly advanced beyond a few feminine lectures. In many branches of work women are less employed than in England. They are not so frequent behind counters in the shops, and are rarely seen as servants in hotels. The fires in such houses are lighted and the rooms swept by men. But the American girls may say they do not desire to light fires and sweep rooms. They are ambitious of the higher cla.s.ses of work. But those higher branches of work require study, apprentices.h.i.+p, a devotion of youth; and that they will not give. It is very well for a young man to bind himself for four years, and to think of marrying four years after that apprentices.h.i.+p is over. But such a prospectus will not do for a girl. While the sun s.h.i.+nes the hay must be made, and her sun s.h.i.+nes earlier in the day than that of him who is to be her husband. Let him go through the apprentices.h.i.+p and the work, and she will have sufficient on her hands if she looks well after his household. Under nature's teaching she is aware of this, and will not bind herself to any other apprentices.h.i.+p, let Mrs.

Dall preach as she may.

I remember seeing, either at New York or Boston, a wooden figure of a neat young woman, as large as life, standing at a desk with a ledger before her, and looking as though the beau ideal of human bliss were realized in her employment. Under the figure there was some notice respecting female accountants. Nothing could be nicer than the lady's figure, more flowing than the broad lines of her drapery, or more attractive than her auburn ringlets. There she stood at work, earning her bread without any impediment to the natural operation of her female charms, and adjusting the accounts of some great firm with as much facility as grace. I wonder whether he who designed that figure had ever sat or stood at a desk for six hours,--whether he knew the dull hum of the brain which comes from long attention to another man's figures; whether he had ever soiled his own fingers with the everlasting work of office hours, or worn his sleeves threadbare as he leaned, weary in body and mind, upon his desk? Work is a grand thing,--the grandest thing we have; but work is not picturesque, graceful, and in itself alluring. It sucks the sap out of men's bones, and bends their backs, and sometimes breaks their hearts; but though it be so, I for one would not wish to throw any heavier share of it on to a woman's shoulders. It was pretty to see those young women with spectacles at the Boston library, but when I heard that they were there from eight in the morning till nine at night, I pitied them their loss of all the softness of home, and felt that they would not willingly be there if necessity were less stern.

Say that by advocating the rights of women, philanthropists succeed in apportioning more work to their share, will they eat more, wear better clothes, lie softer, and have altogether more of the fruits of work than they do now? That some would do so there can be no doubt, but as little that some would have less. If on the whole they would not have more, for what good result is the movement made? The first question is, whether at the present time they have less than their proper share. There are, unquestionably, terrible cases of female want, and so there are also of want among men. Alas! do we not all feel that it must be so, let the philanthropists be ever so energetic? And if a woman be left dest.i.tute, without the a.s.sistance of father, brother, or husband, it would be hard if no means of earning subsistence were open to her. But the object now sought is not that of relieving such distress. It has a much wider tendency, or at any rate a wider desire. The idea is that women will enn.o.ble themselves by making themselves independent, by working for their own bread instead of eating bread earned by men. It is in that that these new philosophers seem to me to err so greatly. Humanity and chivalry have succeeded after a long struggle in teaching the man to work for the woman; and now the woman rebels against such teaching,--not because she likes the work, but because she desires the influence which attends it. But in this I wrong the woman,--even the American woman. It is not she who desires it, but her philanthropical philosophical friends who desire it for her.

If work were more equally divided between the s.e.xes some women would, of course, receive more of the good things of the world. But women generally would not do so. The tendency then would be to force young women out upon their own exertions. Fathers would soon learn to think that their daughters should be no more dependent on them than their sons; men would expect their wives to work at their own trades; brothers would be taught to think it hard that their sisters should lean on them; and thus women, driven upon their own resources, would hardly fare better than they do at present.

After all it is a question of money, and a contest for that power and influence which money gives. At present men have the position of the Lower House of Parliament. They have to do the harder work, but they hold the purse. Even in England there has grown up a feeling that the old law of the land gives a married man too much power over the joint pecuniary resources of him and his wife, and in America this feeling is much stronger, and the old law has been modified. Why should a married woman be able to possess nothing? And if such be the law of the land, is it worth a woman's while to marry and put herself in such a position? Those are the questions asked by the friends of the rights of women. But the young women do marry, and the men pour their earnings into their wives' laps.

If little has as yet been done in extending the rights of women by giving them a greater share of the work of the world, still less has been done towards giving them their portion of political influence.

In the States there are many men of mark, and women of mark also, who think that women should have votes for public elections. Mr. Wendell Phillips, the Boston lecturer who advocates abolition, is an apostle in this cause also; and while I was at Boston I read the provisions of a will lately left by a millionaire, in which he bequeathed some very large sums of money to be expended in agitation on this subject.

A woman is subject to the law; why then should she not help to make the law? A child is subject to the law, and does not help to make it; but the child lacks that discretion which the woman enjoys equally with the man. That I take it is the amount of the argument in favour of the political rights of women. The logic of this is so conclusive, that I am prepared to acknowledge that it admits of no answer. I will only say that the mutual good relations between men and women, which are so indispensable to our happiness, require that men and women should not take to voting at the same time and on the same result. If it be decided that women shall have political power, let them have it all to themselves for a season. If that be so resolved, I think we may safely leave it to them to name the time at which they will begin.

I confess that in the States I have sometimes been driven to think that chivalry has been carried too far;--that there is an attempt to make women think more of the rights of their womanhood than is needful. There are ladies' doors at hotels, and ladies'

drawing-rooms, ladies' sides on the ferry-boats, ladies' windows at the post office for the delivery of letters;--which, by-the-by, is an atrocious inst.i.tution, as anybody may learn who will look at the advertis.e.m.e.nts called personal in some of the New York papers. Why should not young ladies have their letters sent to their houses, instead of getting them at a private window? The post-office clerks can tell stories about those ladies' windows. But at every turn it is necessary to make separate provision for ladies. From all this it comes to pa.s.s that the baker's daughter looks down from a great height on her papa, and by no means thinks her brother good enough for her a.s.sociate. Nature, the great restorer, comes in and teaches her to fall in love with the butcher's son. Thus the evil is mitigated; but I cannot but wish that the young woman should not see herself denominated a lady so often, and should receive fewer lessons as to the extent of her privileges. I would save her if I could from working at the oven; I would give to her bread and meat earned by her father's care and her brother's sweat; but when she has received these good things, I would have her proud of the one and by no means ashamed of the other.

Let women say what they will of their rights, or men who think themselves generous say what they will for them, the question has all been settled both for them and for us men by a higher power. They are the nursing mothers of mankind, and in that law their fate is written with all its joys and all its privileges. It is for men to make those joys as lasting and those privileges as perfect as may be. That women should have their rights no man will deny. To my thinking neither increase of work nor increase of political influence are among them.

The best right a woman has is the right to a husband, and that is the right to which I would recommend every young woman here and in the States to turn her best attention. On the whole, I think that my doctrine will be more acceptable than that of Mrs. Dall or Mr.

Wendell Phillips.

CHAPTER XIX.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION.

The one matter in which, as far as my judgment goes, the people of the United States have excelled us Englishmen, so as to justify them in taking to themselves praise which we cannot take to ourselves or refuse to them, is the matter of Education. In saying this I do not think that I am proclaiming anything disgraceful to England, though I am proclaiming much that is creditable to America. To the Americans of the States was given the good fortune of beginning at the beginning. The French at the time of their revolution endeavoured to reorganize everything, and to begin the world again with new habits and grand theories; but the French as a people were too old for such a change, and the theories fell to the ground. But in the States, after their revolution, an Anglo-Saxon people had an opportunity of making a new State, with all the experience of the world before them; and to this matter of education they were from the first aware that they must look for their success. They did so; and unrivalled population, wealth, and intelligence have been the results; and with these, looking at the whole ma.s.ses of the people,--I think I am justified in saying,--unrivalled comfort and happiness. It is not that you, my reader, to whom in this matter of education fortune and your parents have probably been bountiful, would have been more happy in New York than in London. It is not that I, who, at any rate, can read and write, have cause to wish that I had been an American. But it is this:--if you and I can count up in a day all those on whom our eyes may rest, and learn the circ.u.mstances of their lives, we shall be driven to conclude that nine-tenths of that number would have had a better life as Americans than they can have in their spheres as Englishmen. The States are at a discount with us now, in the beginning of this year of grace 1862; and Englishmen were not very willing to admit the above statement, even when the States were not at a discount. But I do not think that a man can travel through the States with his eyes open and not admit the fact. Many things will conspire to induce him to shut his eyes and admit no conclusion favourable to the Americans. Men and women will sometimes be impudent to him;--the better his coat, the greater the impudence. He will be pelted with the braggadocio of equality. The corns of his Old-World conservatism will be trampled on hourly by the purposely vicious herd of uncouth democracy. The fact that he is paymaster will go for nothing, and will fail to insure civility. I shall never forget my agony as I saw and heard my desk fall from a porter's hand on a railway station, as he tossed it from him seven yards off on to the hard pavement. I heard its poor weak intestines rattle in their death-struggle, and knowing that it was smashed I forgot my position on American soil and remonstrated. "It's my desk, and you have utterly destroyed it," I said. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the porter.

"You've destroyed my property," I rejoined, "and it's no laughing matter." And then all the crowd laughed. "Guess you'd better get it glued," said one. So I gathered up the broken article and retired mournfully and crestfallen into a coach. This was very sad, and for the moment I deplored the ill-luck which had brought me to so savage a country. Such and such like are the incidents which make an Englishman in the States unhappy, and rouse his gall against the inst.i.tutions of the country;--these things and the continued appliance of the irritating ointment of American braggadocio with which his sores are kept open. But though I was badly off on that railway platform,--worse off than I should have been in England,--all that crowd of porters round me were better off than our English porters. They had a "good time" of it. And this, O my English brother who hast travelled through the States and returned disgusted, is the fact throughout. Those men whose familiarity was so disgusting to you are having a good time of it. "They might be a little more civil,"

you say, "and yet read and write just as well." True; but they are arguing in their minds that civility to you will be taken by you for subservience, or for an acknowledgment of superiority; and looking at your habits of life,--yours and mine together,--I am not quite sure that they are altogether wrong. Have you ever realized to yourself as a fact that the porter who carries your box has not made himself inferior to you by the very act of carrying that box? If not, that is the very lesson which the man wishes to teach you.

If a man can forget his own miseries in his journeyings, and think of the people he comes to see rather than of himself, I think he will find himself driven to admit that education has made life for the million in the Northern States better than life for the million is with us. They have begun at the beginning, and have so managed that every one may learn to read and write,--have so managed that almost every one does learn to read and write. With us this cannot now be done. Population had come upon us in ma.s.ses too thick for management before we had as yet acknowledged that it would be a good thing that these ma.s.ses should be educated. Prejudices, too, had sprung up, and habits, and strong sectional feelings, all antagonistic to a great national system of education. We are, I suppose, now doing all that we can do; but comparatively it is little. I think I saw some time since that the cost for gratuitous education, or education in part gratuitous, which had fallen upon the nation had already amounted to the sum of 800,000; and I think also that I read in the doc.u.ment which revealed to me this fact, a very strong opinion that Government could not at present go much further. But if this matter were regarded in England as it is regarded in Ma.s.sachusetts,--or rather, had it from some prosperous beginning been put upon a similar footing, 800,000 would not have been esteemed a great expenditure for free education simply in the city of London. In 1857 the public schools of Boston cost 70,000, and these schools were devoted to a population of about 180,000 souls. Taking the population of London at two-and-a-half millions, the whole sum now devoted to England would, if expended in the metropolis, make education there even cheaper than it is in Boston. In Boston during 1857 there were above 24,000 pupils at these public schools, giving more than one-eighth of the whole population. But I fear it would not be practicable for us to spend 800,000 on the gratuitous education of London. Rich as we are, we should not know where to raise the money. In Boston it is raised by a separate tax. It is a thing understood, acknowledged, and made easy by being habitual,--as is our national debt. I do not know that Boston is peculiarly blessed, but I quote the instance as I have a record of its schools before me. At the three high schools in Boston, at which the average of pupils is 526, about 13 per head is paid for free education. The average price per annum of a child's schooling throughout these schools in Boston is about 3 per annum.

To the higher schools any boy or girl may attain without any expense, and the education is probably as good as can be given, and as far advanced. The only question is, whether it is not advanced further than may be necessary. Here, as at New York, I was almost startled by the amount of knowledge around me, and listened, as I might have done, to an examination in theology among young Brahmins. When a young lad explained in my hearing all the properties of the different levers as exemplified by the bones of the human body, I bowed my head before him in unaffected humility. We, at our English schools, never got beyond the use of those bones which he described with such accurate scientific knowledge. In one of the girls' schools they were reading Milton, and when we entered were discussing the nature of the pool in which the Devil is described as wallowing. The question had been raised by one of the girls. A pool, so called, was supposed to contain but a small amount of water, and how could the Devil, being so large, get into it? Then came the origin of the word pool,--from "palus," a marsh, as we were told, some dictionary attesting to the fact,--and such a marsh might cover a large expanse. The "Palus Maeotis" was then quoted. And so we went on till Satan's theory of political liberty,

"Better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven,"

was thoroughly discussed and understood. These girls of sixteen and seventeen got up one after another and gave their opinions on the subject,--how far the Devil was right and how far he was manifestly wrong. I was attended by one of the directors or guardians of the schools, and the teacher, I thought, was a little embarra.s.sed by her position. But the girls themselves were as easy in their demeanour as though they were st.i.tching handkerchiefs at home.

It is impossible to refrain from telling all this, and from making a little innocent fun out of the super-excellencies of these schools; but the total result on my mind was very greatly in their favour.

And indeed the testimony came in both ways. Not only was I called on to form an opinion of what the men and women would become from the education which was given to the boys and girls, but also to say what must have been the education of the boys and girls from what I saw of the men and women. Of course it will be understood that I am not here speaking of those I met in society, or of their children, but of the working people,--of that cla.s.s who find that a gratuitous education for their children is needful, if any considerable amount of education is to be given. The result is to be seen daily in the whole intercourse of life. The coachman who drives you, the man who mends your window, the boy who brings home your purchases, the girl who st.i.tches your wife's dress,--they all carry with them sure signs of education, and show it in every word they utter.

It will of course be understood that this is, in the separate States, a matter of State law; indeed I may go further and say that it is in most of the States a matter of State const.i.tution. It is by no means a matter of Federal const.i.tution. The United States as a nation takes no heed of the education of its people. All that is left to the judgment of the separate States. In most of the thirteen original States provision is made in the written const.i.tution for the general education of the people; but this is not done in all. I find that it was more frequently done in the Northern or Freesoil States than in those which admitted slavery,--as might have been expected. In the const.i.tutions of South Carolina and Virginia I find no allusion to the public provision for education, but in those of North Carolina and Georgia it is enjoined. The forty-first section of the const.i.tution for North Carolina enjoins that "schools shall be established by the legislature for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct _at low prices_;" showing that the intention here was to a.s.sist education, and not provide it altogether gratuitously. I think that provision for public education is enjoined in the const.i.tutions of all the States admitted into the Union since the first federal knot was tied, except in that of Illinois. Vermont was the first so admitted, in 1791, and Vermont declares that "a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town for the convenient instruction of youth." Ohio was the second, in 1802, and Ohio enjoins that "the general a.s.sembly shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the State; but no religious or other sect or sects shall ever have any exclusive right or control of any part of the school funds of this State." In Indiana, admitted in 1816, it is required that "the general a.s.sembly shall provide by law for a general and uniform system of common schools." Illinois was admitted next, in 1818; but the const.i.tution of Illinois is silent on the subject of education. It enjoins, however, in lieu of this, that no person shall fight a duel or send a challenge! If he do he is not only to be punished, but to be deprived for ever of the power of holding any office of honour or profit in the State. I have no reason, however, for supposing that education is neglected in Illinois, or that duelling has been abolished. In Maine it is demanded that the towns--the whole country is divided into what are called towns--shall make suitable provision at their own expense for the support and maintenance of public schools.

Some of these const.i.tutional enactments are most magniloquently worded, but not always with precise grammatical correctness. That for the famous Bay State of Ma.s.sachusetts runs as follows:--"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and of all seminaries of them, especially the University at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public inst.i.tutions, by rewards, and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in all their dealings; sincerity, good humour, and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people." I must confess, that had the words of that little const.i.tutional enactment been made known to me before I had seen its practical results, I should not have put much faith in it. Of all the public schools I have ever seen,--by public schools I mean schools for the people at large maintained at public cost,--those of Ma.s.sachusetts are, I think, the best. But of all the educational enactments which I ever read, that of the same State is, I should say, the worst. In Texas now, of which as a State the people of Ma.s.sachusetts do not think much, they have done it better. "A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of this State to make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of public schools." So say the Texians; but then the Texians had the advantage of a later experience than any which fell in the way of the const.i.tution-makers of Ma.s.sachusetts.

There is something of the magniloquence of the French style,--of the liberty, equality, and fraternity mode of eloquence,--in the preambles of most of these const.i.tutions, which, but for their success, would have seemed to have prophesied loudly of failure.

Those of New York and Pennsylvania are the least so, and that of Ma.s.sachusetts by far the most violently magniloquent. They generally commence by thanking G.o.d for the present civil and religious liberty of the people, and by declaring that all men are born free and equal.

New York and Pennsylvania, however, refrain from any such very general remarks.

I am well aware that all these const.i.tutional enactments are not likely to obtain much credit in England. It is not only that grand phrases fail to convince us, but that they carry to our senses almost an a.s.surance of their own inefficiency. When we hear that a people have declared their intention of being henceforward better than their neighbours, and going upon a new theory that shall lead them direct to a terrestrial paradise, we b.u.t.ton up our pockets and lock up our spoons. And that is what we have done very much as regards the Americans. We have walked with them and talked with them, and bought with them and sold with them; but we have mistrusted them as to their internal habits and modes of life, thinking that their philanthropy was pretentious and that their theories were vague. Many cities in the States are but skeletons of towns, the streets being there, and the houses numbered,--but not one house built out of ten that have been so counted up. We have regarded their inst.i.tutions as we regard those cities, and have been specially willing so to consider them because of the fine language in which they have been paraded before us. They have been regarded as the skeletons of philanthropical systems, to which blood and flesh and muscle, and even skin, are wanting. But it is at least but fair to inquire how far the promise made has been carried out. The elaborate wordings of the const.i.tutions made by the French politicians in the days of their great revolution have always been to us no more than so many written grimaces; but we should not have continued so to regard them had the political liberty which they promised followed upon the promises so magniloquently made. As regards education in the States,--at any rate in the northern and western States,--I think that the a.s.surances put forth in the various written const.i.tutions have been kept. If this be so, an American citizen, let him be ever so arrogant, ever so impudent if you will, is at any rate a civilized being, and on the road to that cultivation which will sooner or later divest him of his arrogance. _Emollit mores._ We quote here our old friend the Colonel again. If a gentleman be compelled to confine his cla.s.sical allusions to one quotation, he cannot do better than hang by that.

But has education been so general, and has it had the desired result?

In the city of Boston, as I have said, I found that in 1857 about one-eighth of the whole population were then on the books of the free public schools as pupils, and that about one-ninth of the population formed the average daily attendance. To these numbers of course must be added all pupils of the richer cla.s.ses,--those for whose education their parents chose to pay. As nearly as I can learn, the average duration of each pupil's schooling is six years, and if this be figured out statistically, I think it will show that education in Boston reaches a very large majority--I must almost say the whole--of the population. That the education given in other towns of Ma.s.sachusetts is not so good as that given in Boston I do not doubt, but I have reason to believe that it is quite as general.

I have spoken of one of the schools of New York. In that city the public schools are apportioned to the wards, and are so arranged that in each ward of the city there are public schools of different standing for the gratuitous use of the children. The population of the city of New York in 1857 was about 650,000, and in that year it is stated that there were 135,000 pupils in the schools. By this it would appear that one person in five throughout the city was then under process of education,--which statement, however, I cannot receive with implicit credence. It is, however, also stated that the daily attendances averaged something less than 50,000 a day--and this latter statement probably implies some mistake in the former one.

Taking the two together for what they are worth, they show, I think, that school teaching is not only brought within the reach of the population generally, but is used by almost all cla.s.ses. At New York there are separate free schools for coloured children. At Philadelphia I did not see the schools, but I was a.s.sured that the arrangements there were equal to those at New York and Boston. Indeed I was told that they were infinitely better;--but then I was so told by a Philadelphian. In the State of Connecticut the public schools are certainly equal to those in any part of the Union. As far as I could learn, education--what we should call advanced education--is brought within the reach of all cla.s.ses in the northern and western States of America,--and, I would wish to add here, to those of the Canadas also.

So much for the schools, and now for the results. I do not know that anything impresses a visitor more strongly with the amount of books sold in the States, than the practice of selling them as it has been adopted in the railway cars. Personally the traveller will find the system very disagreeable,--as is everything connected with these cars. A young man enters during the journey,--for the trade is carried out while the cars are travelling, as is also a very brisk trade in lollipops, sugar-candy, apples, and ham sandwiches,--the young tradesman enters the car firstly with a pile of magazines or of novels bound like magazines. These are chiefly the "Atlantic,"

published at Boston, "Harper's Magazine," published at New York, and a cheap series of novels published at Philadelphia. As he walks along he flings one at every pa.s.senger. An Englishman, when he is first introduced to this manner of trade, becomes much astonished. He is probably reading, and on a sudden he finds a fat, fluffy magazine, very unattractive in its exterior, dropped on to the page he is perusing. I thought at first that it was a present from some crazed philanthropist, who was thus endeavouring to disseminate literature.

But I was soon undeceived. The bookseller, having gone down the whole car and the next, returned, and beginning again where he had begun before, picked up either his magazine or else the price of it. Then, in some half-hour, he came again, with an armful or basket of books, and distributed them in the same way. They were generally novels, but not always. I do not think that any endeavour is made to a.s.similate the book to the expected customer. The object is to bring the book and the man together, and in this way a very large sale is effected.

The same thing is done with ill.u.s.trated newspapers. The sale of political newspapers goes on so quickly in these cars that no such enforced distribution is necessary. I should say that the average consumption of newspapers by an American must amount to about three a day. At Was.h.i.+ngton I begged the keeper of my lodgings to let me have a paper regularly,--one American newspaper being much the same to me as another,--and my host supplied me daily with four.

But the numbers of the popular books of the day, printed and sold, afford the most conclusive proof of the extent to which education is carried in the States. The readers of Tennyson, Thackeray, d.i.c.kens, Bulwer, Collins, Hughes, and--Martin Tupper, are to be counted by tens of thousands in the States, to the thousands by which they may be counted in our own islands. I do not doubt that I had fully fifteen copies of the "Silver Cord" thrown at my head in different railway cars on the continent of America. Nor is the taste by any means confined to the literature of England. Longfellow, Curtis, Holmes, Hawthorne, Lowell, Emerson,--and Mrs. Stowe, are almost as popular as their English rivals. I do not say whether or no the literature is well chosen, but there it is. It is printed, sold, and read. The disposal of ten thousand copies of a work is no large sale in America of a book published at a dollar; but in England it is a large sale of a book brought out at five s.h.i.+llings.

I do not remember that I ever examined the rooms of an American without finding books or magazines in them. I do not speak here of the houses of my friends, as of course the same remark would apply as strongly in England, but of the houses of persons presumed to earn their bread by the labour of their hands. The opportunity for such examination does not come daily; but when it has been in my power I have made it, and have always found signs of education. Men and women of the cla.s.ses to which I allude talk of reading and writing as of arts belonging to them as a matter of course, quite as much as are the arts of eating and drinking. A porter or a farmer's servant in the States is not proud of reading and writing. It is to him quite a matter of course. The coachmen on their boxes and the boots as they sit in the halls of the hotels, have newspapers constantly in their hands. The young women have them also, and the children. The fact comes home to one at every turn, and at every hour, that the people are an educated people. The whole of this question between North and South is as well understood by the servants as by their masters, is discussed as vehemently by the private soldiers as by the officers.

The politics of the country and the nature of its const.i.tution are familiar to every labourer. The very wording of the Declaration of Independence is in the memory of every lad of sixteen. Boys and girls of a younger age than that know why Slidell and Mason were arrested, and will tell you why they should have been given up, or why they should have been held in durance. The question of the war with England is debated by every native paviour and hodman of New York.

I know what Englishmen will say in answer to this. They will declare that they do not want their paviours and hodmen to talk politics; that they are as well pleased that their coachmen and cooks should not always have a newspaper in their hands; that private soldiers will fight as well, and obey better, if they are not trained to discuss the causes which have brought them into the field. An English gentleman will think that his gardener will be a better gardener without than with any excessive political ardour; and the English lady will prefer that her housemaid shall not have a very p.r.o.nounced opinion of her own as to the capabilities of the cabinet ministers.

But I would submit to all Englishmen and Englishwomen who may look at these pages whether such an opinion or feeling on their part bears much, or even at all, upon the subject. I am not saying that the man who is driven in the coach is better off because his coachman reads the paper, but that the coachman himself who reads the paper is better off than the coachman who does not and cannot. I think that we are too apt, in considering the ways and habits of any people, to judge of them by the effect of those ways and habits on us, rather than by their effects on the owners of them. When we go among garlic-eaters, we condemn them because they are offensive to us; but to judge of them properly we should ascertain whether or no the garlic be offensive to them. If we could imagine a nation of vegetarians hearing for the first time of our habits as flesh-eaters, we should feel sure that they would be struck with horror at our blood-stained banquets; but when they came to argue with us, we should bid them inquire whether we flesh-eaters did not live longer and do more than the vegetarians. When we express a dislike to the s...o...b..y reading his newspaper, I fear we do so because we fear that the s...o...b..y is coming near our own heels. I know there is among us a strong feeling that the lower cla.s.ses are better without politics, as there is also that they are better without crinoline and artificial flowers; but if politics and crinoline and artificial flowers are good at all, they are good for all who can honestly come by them and honestly use them. The political coachman is perhaps less valuable to his master as a coachman than he would be without his politics, but he with his politics is more valuable to himself. For myself, I do not like the Americans of the lower orders. I am not comfortable among them. They tread on my corns and offend me. They make my daily life unpleasant. But I do respect them. I acknowledge their intelligence and personal dignity. I know that they are men and women worthy to be so called; I see that they are living as human beings in possession of reasoning faculties; and I perceive that they owe this to the progress that education has made among them.

After all, what is wanted in this world? Is it not that men should eat and drink, and read and write, and say their prayers? Does not that include everything, providing that they eat and drink enough, read and write without restraint, and say their prayers without hypocrisy? When we talk of the advances of civilization, do we mean anything but this, that men who now eat and drink badly shall eat and drink well, and that those who cannot read and write now shall learn to do so,--the prayers following, as prayers will follow upon such learning? Civilization does not consist in the eschewing of garlic or the keeping clean of a man's finger-nails. It may lead to such delicacies, and probably will do so. But the man who thinks that civilization cannot exist without them imagines that the church cannot stand without the spire. In the States of America men do eat and drink, and do read and write.

But as to saying their prayers? That, as far as I can see, has come also, though perhaps not in a manner altogether satisfactory, or to a degree which should be held to be sufficient. Englishmen of strong religious feeling will often be startled in America by the freedom with which religious subjects are discussed, and the ease with which the matter is treated; but he will very rarely be shocked by that utter absence of all knowledge on the subject,--that total darkness, which is still so common among the lower orders in our own country.

It is not a common thing to meet an American who belongs to no denomination of Christian wors.h.i.+p, and who cannot tell you why he belongs to that which he has chosen.