In the first place, if the granting of national aid to education be unconstitutional, it can only be so in a mere technicality, and not in the spirit of that Magna Charta which has permitted the millions of broad acres of our country to be devoted to the cause of education for so many years past, and which now constitute a school fund which is doing so much in the molding of characters for our national citizenship, and contribute so largely to the safety and prosperity of our American institutions.

We deem it altogether useless, in the limited space at our command, to discuss before this body the constitutionality of the proposed measure of granting national aid to education. There is a Roll of Honor, made up of the names of forty-one United States Senators who favored the Blair Education Bill, the glory of which is only equaled by the illustrious names which are affixed to the Declaration of American Independence. The one was to liberate this country from foreign oppres sion, the other has for its grand object our deliverance from the bonds of ignorance and its fearful consequences. The forty-one Senators referred to as favoring national aid are men of judgment, discretion, and wisdom. Their speeches before Congress were sincere, earnest, and powerful. Their conclusions were reached after mature thought, and they gave utterance to what they thought and felt on every point in this issue. With such men to approve this measure in the light of constitutional law, we feel safe.

The expediency of this measure, in our opinion, hinges on a few simple propositions, viz:

1. The national Government recognizes the sovereign importance of each voting citizen, and grants to him privileges, and imposes upon him duties, which require a certain degree of educational qualification.

2. When the General Government finds that it has a large and growing mass of illiterate people who have not the means of acquiring such training and development as their relations to the Government demand, it is quite clear that the General Government should promptly assist in their education. For, if the national Government had no claims on its citizens, the responsibility of their education would rest altogether elsewhere.

3. If there is a consititutional impediment to this measure, the same spirit that led to the emancipation of human slavery should lead us to make such amendments to the Constitution as would give liberty to the millions who are now in the slavery of ignorance.

Now, in conclusion: The Congress of the United States is now in session. To this honorable body we look, with breathless suspense, for the adoption of a measure which will infuse new and vigorous life into that cause which lies near to every true American's heart. Indeed, this is an auspicious moment. From the Lakes to the Gulf, and from Ocean to Ocean, anxious minds are wondering what will be the final

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 present 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 Con

gress.

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 temporary 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 Nelson, 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 abeyance 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 judg ment 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 som what 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 wę acquire and hold by our own self devotion and diligence.

Our form of government is, perhaps, as perfect as the experience and 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 divin