Transcriber's Note: The following Table of Contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.
'NURSERIES OF AMERICAN FREEMEN.'
SADNESS.
YOUNG LOVE.
WILSON CONWORTH.
LINES
SONNET: TO MRS. —— —— ——
RANDOM PASSAGES
THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS.
THE DEAD HUSBAND.
THE DYING BOY.
A FEW THOUGHTS ON PHRENOLOGY.
A PRACTITIONER, HIS PILGRIMAGE
OUR VILLAGE POST-OFFICE.
SONNETS: BY 'QUINCE.'
ANACREONTIC.
OLLAPODIANA.
LAMENT
LITERARY NOTICES.
EDITORS' TABLE
THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Vol. X. NOVEMBER, 1837. No. 5.
'NURSERIES OF AMERICAN FREEMEN.'
NUMBER ONE.
General Education is the attribute and glory of republicanAmerica. It constitutes one of the strongest pledges of the successof that interesting experiment in politics, which has astonished andenlightened the nations of the eastern continent, and which promises,in future times, to be the grand means of extending the blessings offreedom to the civilized world. Education, in some of the mostenlightened European countries, is like the sun rising in majesty, andgilding with surpassing brightness a few mountain tops. Educationin the United States is like the sun pouring his cheering radianceover every hill, and into every valley.
The peculiar importance of universal and well-conducted education,in a republican government, must be evident from the slightestconsideration. Every American citizen is a juror, before whom eachofficer of the government is on trial, in regard to his capacity andfidelity. The public prints are the pleaders, oftentimes very artful,and sometimes not altogether honest; and these jurors need to bewell furnished with an enlightened understanding, that they may not beimposed upon by misrepresentation and sophistry. Universal suffragecan never be safely trusted but in the hands of an intelligent and virtuouspopulation. And it is questionable whether another countrycan now be found, beside the United States, where education is sufficientlygeneral, and conducted upon such principles, as to form asufficient basis on which to rest the structure of a republicangovernment.
The want of a well-educated population has been the occasion ofmost of the difficulties and disorders which have agitated the SouthAmerican republics, where one stormy revolution has succeededanother, and where a strong tendency has been evinced to return tothe death-like calm of despotism. This is