5000 Year Leap (26 page)

   "The best thing of all is not that the law should rule, but that a man should rule, supposing him to have wisdom and royal power."
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   Plato acknowledged that in the absence of rulers with the "scientific" wisdom to govern, a code of laws would be needed, but he insisted that this would be the "second best thing."

   As we have seen, the American Founding Fathers would have agreed with Aristotle rather than Plato. Part of this was due to the fact that the Founders looked upon law differently than Plato. Instead of treating law as merely a code of negative restraints and prohibitions, they considered law to be a system of positive rules by which they could be assured of enjoying their rights and the protection of themselves, their families, and their property. In other words, law was a positive good rather than a necessary evil. This was precisely the view of John Locke when he wrote:

   "The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law."
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   The Founders were sensitive to the fact that the people have confidence in the law only to the extent that they can understand it and feel that it is a rule of relative permanence which will not be continually changed. James Madison emphasized both of these points when he wrote:

   "It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?"
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   It will be recalled that Thomas Jefferson resigned from Congress in 1776 to hasten back to Virginia and volunteer for the task of rewriting the state laws so that, when independence had been won, the people would have a model system of legal principles which they could understand and warmly support. The complex codes of laws and regulations in our own day could be greatly improved through a similar housecleaning.

   The English colonists in America undertook something which no nation had ever attempted before -- the educating of the whole people. The colonists had a sense of "manifest destiny" which led them to believe that they must prepare themselves for a most unique and important role in the unfolding of modern world history. Universal education was therefore considered an indispensable ingredient in this preparation.

   The movement for universal education began in New England. Clear back in 1647 the legislature of Massachusetts passed a law requiring every community of 50 families or householders to set up a free public grammar school to teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, ciphering, history, geography, and Bible study. In addition, every township containing 100 families or more was required to set up a secondary school in advanced studies to prepare boys for attendance at Harvard. John Adams stated that this whole program was designed to have "knowledge diffused generally through the whole body of the people." He said:

   "They made an early provision by law that every town consisting of so many families should be always furnished with a grammar school. They made it a crime for such a town to be destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to heavy penalty. So that the education of all ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people, ancient or modern.

   "The consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day [written in 1765]. A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare ... as a comet or an earthquake. It has been observed that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians, and philosophers. And I have good authorities to say that all candid foreigners who have passed through this country and conversed freely with all sorts of people here will allow that they have never seen so much knowledge and civility among the common people in any part of the world.... Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.... They have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge -- I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."
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   The success of this educational effort was due largely to the careful selection of highly conscientious people to serve on the school committees in each community and supervise the public schools. Historian John Fiske says these school committees were bodies of "great importance." Then he adds:

   "The term of service of the members is three years, one third being chosen annually. The number of members must therefore be some multiple of three. The slow change in the membership of the board insures that a large proportion of the members shall always be familiar with the duties of the place. The school committee must visit all the public schools at least once a month, and make a report to the town every year. It is for them to decide what textbooks are to be used. They examine candidates for the position of teacher and issue certificates to those whom they select."
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   The unique and remarkable qualities of this program are better appreciated when it is realized that this was an age when illiteracy was the common lot of most people in Europe. John Adams, who spent many years in France, commented on the fact that of the 24 million inhabitants of France, only 500,000 could read and write.
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   In the American colonies the intention was to have all children taught the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic, so that they could go on to become well informed citizens through their own diligent self-study. No doubt this explains why all of the American Founders were so well read, and usually from the same books, even though a number of them had received a very limited formal education. The fundamentals were sufficient to get them started, and thereafter they became remarkably well informed in a variety of areas through self-learning. This was the pattern followed by both Franklin and Washington.

   Gradually, the zeal for universal education spread from New England to all of the other colonies. By 1831, when Alexis de Tocqueville of France visited the United States, he was amazed by the fruits of this effort. He wrote:

   "The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state of instruction among the Anglo Americans must consider the same object from two different points of view. If he singles out only the learned, he will be astonished to find how few they are; but if he counts the ignorant, the American people will appear to be the most enlightened in the world....

   "In New England every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution. In the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon."
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   De Tocqueville pointed out that as the visitor advanced toward the West or the South, "the instruction of the people diminishes." Nevertheless, he said, "there is not a single district in the United States sunk in complete ignorance...."
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De Tocqueville made extensive excursions along the frontier and commented on his observations as follows:

   "At the extreme borders of the confederated states, upon the confines of society and wilderness, a population of bold adventurers have taken up their abode, who pierce the solitudes of the American woods.... As soon as the pioneer reaches the place which is to serve him for a retreat, he fells a few trees and builds a log house. Nothing can offer a more miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings.... Yet no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling that shelters him. Everything about him is primitive and wild, but he is himself the result of the labor and experience of eighteen centuries. He wears the dress and speaks the language of cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious about the future, and ready for argument about the present; he is, in short, a highly civilized being, who consents for a time to inhabit the backwoods, and who penetrates into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, and some newspapers. It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which thought circulates in the midst of these deserts [wilderness]. I do not think that so much intellectual activity exists in the most enlightened and populous districts of France."
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   He then went on to comment concerning the close relationship between the program of universal education and the preservation of freedom:

   "It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of the democratic republic; and such must always be the case, I believe, where the instruction which enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education.... An American should never be led to speak of Europe, for he will then probably display much presumption and very foolish pride.... But if you question him respecting his own country, the cloud that dimmed his intelligence will immediately disperse; his language will become as clear and precise as his thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are and by what means he exercises them; he will be able to point out the customs which obtain in the political world. You will find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the administration, and that he is familiar with the mechanism of the laws.... The American learns to know the laws by participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing. The great work of society is ever going on before his eyes and, as it were, under his hands.

   "In the United States, politics are the end and aim of education....
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   To appreciate the literal reality of the emphasis on politics in early American education, one need only examine the popular textbook on political instruction for children. It was called a "Catechism on the Constitution," and it contained both questions and answers concerning the principles of the American political system. It was written by Arthur J. Stansbury and published in 1828.

   Early Americans knew they were in possession of a unique and valuable invention of political science, and they were determined to promote it on all levels of education.

   In 1843, Daniel Webster made a statement which might surprise Americans of our own day:

   "And whatever may be said to the contrary, a correct use of the English language is, at this day [1843], more general throughout the United States than it is throughout England herself."
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   It was commonplace for the many people on the frontier, as well as on the Atlantic seaboard, to speak with a genuine flavor of eloquence. Sermons and orations by men of limited formal education reflected a flourish and style of expression which few Americans could duplicate today. Many of these attributed their abilities to extensive reading of the Bible. Such was the case with Abraham Lincoln. Certainly the classical beauty of the Gettysburg Address and his many other famous expressions cannot be attributed to college training, for he had none.

   Not only did the Bible contribute to the linguistic habits of the people, but it provided root strength to their moral standards and behavioral patterns. As Daniel Webster stated, wherever Americans went, "the Bible came with them." Then he added: