Frederick Marryat – The Complete Collection

Chapter 72

I must first observe that Mr Carey's estimate of education in England is much lower than it ought to be; and I may afterwards prove that his estimate of education in the United States is equally erroneous on the other side.

To estimate the amount of education in England by the number of national schools must ever be wrong. In America, by so doing, a fair approximation may be arrived at, as the education of all classes is chiefly confined to them; but in England the case is different; not only the rich and those in the middling classes of life, but a large proportion of the poor, sending their children to private schools. Could I have obtained a return of the private seminaries in the United Kingdom, it would have astonished Mr Carey. The small parish of Kensington and its vicinity has only two national schools, but it contains 292 (I believe this estimate is below the mark) private establishments for education; and I might produce fifty others, in which the proportion would be almost as remarkable. I have said that a large portion of the poorer classes in England send their children to private teachers. This arises from a feeling of pride; they prefer paying for the tuition of their children rather than having their children educated by the parish , as they term the national schools. The consequence is, that in every town, or village, or hamlet, you will find that there are "dame schools," as they are termed, at which about one half of the children are educated.

The subject of national education has not been warmly taken up in England until within these last twenty-five years, and has made great progress during that period. The Church of England Society for National Education was established in 1813. Two years after its formation there were only 230 schools, containing 40,484 children. By the Twenty-seventh Report of this Society, ending the year 1838, these schools had increased to 17,341, and the number of scholars to 1,003,087. But this, it must be recollected, is but a small proportion of the public education in England; the Dissenters having been equally diligent, and their schools being quite as numerous in proportion to their numbers. We have, moreover, the workhouse schools, and the dame schools before mentioned, for the poorer classes; and for the rich and middling classes, establishments for private tuition, which, could the returns of them and of the scholars be made, would, I am convinced, amount to more than five times the number of the national and public establishments. But as Mr Carey does not bring forward his statistical proof; and I cannot produce mine, all that I can do is to venture my opinion from what I learnt and saw during my sojourn in the United States, or have obtained from American and other authorities.

The State of Massachusetts is a school ; it may be said that all there are educated, Mr Reid states in his work:--

"It was lately ascertained by returns from 131 towns in Massachusetts, that the number of scholars was 12,393; that the number of persons in the towns between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one who are unable to write was fifty-eight; and in one town there were only three persons who could not read or write, and those three were dumb."

I readily assent to this, and I consider Connecticut equal to Massachusetts; but as you leave these two states, you find that education gradually diminishes. [See Note 1.] New York is the next in rank, and thus the scale descends until you arrive at absolute ignorance.

I will now give what I consider as a fair and impartial tabular analysis of the degrees of education in the different states in the Union. It may be cavilled at, but it will nevertheless be a fair approximation. It must be remembered that it is not intended to imply that there are not a certain portion of well-educated people in those states put down in class 4, as ignorant states, but they are included in the Northern states, where they principally receive their education.

Degrees of Education in the different States in the Union .

+===================+===========+ Ý1st Class. ÝPopulation.Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝMassachusetts Ý 700,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝConnecticut Ý 298,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý Ý 998,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý2nd Class. Ý Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝNew York Ý 2,400,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝMaine Ý 555,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝNew Hampshire Ý 300,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝVermont Ý 330,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝRhode Island Ý 110,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝNew Jersey Ý 360,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝOhio Ý 1,300,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý Ý 5,355,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý3rd Class Ý Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝVirginia Ý 1,360,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝNorth Carolina Ý 800,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝSouth Carolina Ý 650,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝPennsylvania (note)Ý 1,600,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝMaryland Ý 500,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝDelaware Ý 80,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝColumbia [district]Ý 50,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝKentucky Ý 800,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý Ý 5,840,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý4th Class Ý Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝTennessee Ý 900,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝGeorgia Ý 620,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝIndians Ý 650,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝIllinois Ý 320,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝAlabama Ý 600,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝLouisiana Ý 350,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝMissouri Ý 350,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝMississippi Ý 150,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝMichigan Ý 120,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝArkansas Ý 70,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝWisconsin Ý 20,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ ÝFlorida [territory]Ý 50,000Ý +-------------------+-----------+ Ý Ý 5,000,000Ý +===================+===========+

If I am correct, it appears then that we have:--

+======================+=========+ ÝHighly educated Ý 998,000Ý +----------------------+---------+ ÝEqual with Scotland Ý5,355,000Ý +----------------------+---------+ ÝNot equal with EnglandÝ5,840,000Ý +----------------------+---------+ ÝUneducated Ý6,000,000Ý +======================+=========+

This census is an estimate of 1836, sufficiently near for the purpose. It is supposed that the population of the united States has since increased about two millions, and of that increase the great majority is in the Western states, where the people are wholly uneducated. Taking, therefore, the first three classes, in which there is education in various degrees, we find that they amount to 12,193,000; against which we may fairly put the 5,000,000 uneducated, adding to it, the 2,000,000 increased population, and 3,000,000 of slaves.

I believe the above to be a fair estimate, although nothing positive can be collected from it. In making a comparison of the degree of education in the United States and in England, one point should not be overlooked. In England, children may be sent to school, but they are taken away as soon as they are useful, and have little time to follow up their education afterwards. Worked like machines, every hour is devoted to labour, and a large portion forget, from disuse, what they have learnt when young. In America, they have the advantage not only of being educated, but of having plenty of time, if they choose, to profit by their education in after life. The mass in America ought, therefore, to be better educated than the mass in England, where circumstances are against it. I must now examine the nature of education given in the United States.

It is admitted as an axiom in the United States, that the only chance they have of upholding their present institutions is by the education of the mass; that is to say, a people who would govern themselves must be enlightened. Convinced of this necessity, every pains has been taken by the Federal and State governments to provide the necessary means of education [See Note 4.] This is granted; but we now have to inquire into the nature of the education, and the advantages derived from such education as is received in the United States.

In the first place, what is education? Is teaching a boy to read and write education? If so, a large proportion of the American community may be said to be educated; but, if you supply a man with a chest of tools, does he therefore become a carpenter! You certainly give him the means of working at the trade, but instead of learning it, he may only cut his fingers. Reading and writing without the farther assistance necessary to guide people aright, is nothing more than a chest of tools.

Then, what is education? I consider that education commences before a child can walk: the first principle of education, the most important, and without which all subsequent are but as leather and prunella, is the lesson of obedience --of submitting to parental control--" Honour thy father and thy mother !"

Now, any one who has been in the United States must have perceived that there is little or no parental control. This has been remarked by most of the writers who have visited the country; indeed to an Englishman it is a most remarkable feature. How is it possible for a child to be brought up in the way that it should go, when he is not obedient to the will of his parents? I have often fallen into a melancholy sort of musing after witnessing such remarkable specimens of uncontrolled will in children; and as the father and mother both smiled at it, I have thought that they little knew what sorrow and vexation were probably in store for them, in consequence of their own injudicious treatment of their offspring. Imagine a child of three years old in England behaving thus:--

"Johnny, my dear, come here," says his mamma.

"I won't," cries Johnny.

"You must, my love, you are all wet, and you'll catch cold."

"I won't," replies Johnny.

"Come, my sweet, and I've something for you."

"I won't."

"Oh! Mr --, do, pray make Johnny come in."

"Come in, Johnny," says the father.

"I won't."

"I tell you, come in directly, sir--do you hear?"

"I won't," replies the urchin taking to his heels.

"A sturdy republican, sir," says his father to me, smiling at the boy's resolute disobedience.

Be it recollected that I give this as one instance of a thousand which I witnessed during my sojourn in the country.

It may be inquired, how is it that such is the case at present, when the obedience to parents was so rigorously inculcated by the puritan fathers, that by the blue laws, the punishment of disobedience was death ? Captain Hall ascribes it to the democracy, and the rights of equality therein acknowledged; but I think, allowing the spirit of their institutions to have some effect in producing this evil, that the principal cause of it is the total neglect of the children by the father, and his absence in his professional pursuits, and the natural weakness of most mothers, when their children are left altogether to their care and guidance.

Mr Sanderson, in his Sketches of Paris, observes:--"The motherly virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, is not entitled to unqualified praise. There is no country in which maternal care is so assiduous; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious tenderness are so frequent." This I believe to be true; not that the American women are really more injudicious than those of England, but because they are not supported as they should be by the authority of the father, of whom the child should always entertain a certain portion of fear mixed with affection, to counterbalance the indulgence accorded by natural yearnings of a mother's heart.

The self-will arising from this fundamental error manifests itself throughout the whole career of the American's existence, and, consequently, it is a self-willed nation par excellence .

At the age of six or seven you will hear both boys and girls contradicting their fathers and mothers, and advancing their own opinions with a firmness which is very striking.

At fourteen or fifteen the boys will seldom remain longer at school. At college, it is the same thing; (note 6) and they learn precisely what they please, and no more. Corporal punishment is not permitted; indeed, if we are to judge from an extract I took from an American paper, the case is reversed.

The following "Rules" are posted up in New Jersey school-house:--

"No kissing girls in school-time; no licking the master during holy days."

At fifteen or sixteen, if not at college, the boy assumes the man; he enters into business, as a clerk to some merchant, or in some store. His father's home is abandoned, except when it may suit his convenience, his salary being sufficient for most of his wants. He frequents the bar, calls for gin cocktails, chews tobacco, and talks politics. His theoretical education, whether he has profited much by it or not, is now superseded by a more practical one, in which he obtains a most rapid proficiency. I have no hesitation in asserting that there is more practical knowledge among the Americans than among any other people under the sun. (note 7).