I
believe the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the lessons
of his early life. When I see the village school, and the tattered
scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical
art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching
that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life,
insuring property, fencing the Altar, guarding the Throne, giving
space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him
up to his own place in the order of Creation."
That first sentence contain? the pith of the whole matter. "Reading
and writing are mere increase of power," and they may be turned
to a good or a bad purpose. Here enters the ethical consideration
which the zealots of sheer knowledge so persistently ignored. The
language about fencing the Altar and guarding the Throne might, no
doubt, strike the Judge who tried the school-teachers as unduly
idealistic; but the sentiment is sound, and knowledge is either
a blessing or a curse, according as it is used.
Sydney Smith was speaking of the Elementary School, and, indeed,
was urging the claims of the working classes to better education.
But his doctrine applies with at least equal force to the higher
and wider ranges of knowledge.
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