Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions | Page 7

question is, which is the more economical? Or, in other words, is it of any consequence to the employer whether the laborer is ignorant or intelligent?
Before we discuss this point abstractly, let us notice the conduct of men. Is any one willing to give an ignorant farm laborer as much as he is ready to pay for the services of an intelligent man? And if not, why the distinction? And if an ignorant man is not the best man upon a farm, is he likely to be so in a shop or mill? And if not, we see how the proprietors of factories are interested in elevating the standard of learning, in the mills and outside. But they are not singular in this. All classes of employers are equally concerned in the education of the laborer; for learning not only makes his labor more valuable to himself, but the market price of the product is generally reduced, and the change affects favorably all interests of society. This benefit is one of the first in point of time, and the one, perhaps, most appreciable of all which learning has conferred upon the laborer. As each laborer, with the same expenditure of physical force, produces a greater result, of course the aggregate products of the world are vastly increased, although they represent only the same number of laborers that a less quantity would have represented under an ignorant system.
The division of these products upon any principle conceivable leaves for the laborer a larger quantity than he could have before commanded; for, although the share of the wealthy may be disproportionate, their ability to consume is limited; and, as poverty is the absence or want of things necessary and convenient for the purposes of life, according to the ideas at the time entertained, we see how a laboring population, necessarily poor while ignorance prevails, is elevated to a position of greater social and physical comfort, as mind takes the place of brute force in the industries of the world. Learning, then, is not the result of social comfort, but social comfort is the product of intelligence, and increases or diminishes as intelligence is general or limited. It is not, however, to be taken as granted that each laborer's position corresponds or answers to the sum of his own knowledge. It might happen that an ignorant laborer would enjoy the advantages of a general culture, to which he contributed little or nothing; and it must of necessity also happen that an intelligent laborer, in the midst of an ignorant population, as in Ireland or India, for example, would be compelled to accept, in the main, the condition of those around him. But there is no evidence on the face of society now, or in its history, that an ignorant population, whether a laboring population or not, has ever escaped from a condition of poverty. And the converse of the proposition is undoubtedly true, that an intelligent laboring community will soon become a wealthy community. Learning is sure to produce wealth; wealth is likely to contribute to learning, but it does not necessarily produce it. Hence it follows that learning is the only means by which the poor can escape from their poverty.
In this statement it is assumed that education does not promote vice; and not only is this negative assumption true, but it is safe to assume, further, that education favors virtue, and that any given population will be less vicious when educated than when ignorant. This, I cannot doubt, is a general truth, subject, of course, to some exceptions.
The educational struggle in which the English people are now engaged has made distinct and tangible certain opinions and impressions that are latent in many minds. There has been an attempt to show that vice has increased in proportion to education. This attempt has failed, though there may be found, of course, in all countries, single facts, or classes of facts, that seem to sustain such an opinion.
Now, suppose this case,--and neither this case nor any similar one has ever occurred in real life,--but suppose crime to increase as a people were educated, though there should be no increase of population; would this fact prove that learning made men worse? By no means. Our answer is apparent on the face of the change itself. By education, the business, and pecuniary relations and transactions of a people are almost indefinitely multiplied; and temptations to crime, especially to crimes against property, are multiplied in an equal ratio. Would person or property be better respected in New York or Boston, if the most ignorant population of the world could be substituted for the present inhabitants of those cities? The business nerves of men are frequently shocked by some unexpected defalcation, and short-sighted moralists, who lack faith, exclaim, "All