xxxii 
AMERICAN P RE FACE. 
ignorance for the lasting goocl of even those they are intended 
specially to protect; and the free trade which exposes rüde labor 
to the sharp competition of skilled, artistic labor, puts the former 
at great disadvantage as well in the home as in the foreign market. 
Against foreign competition nothing but skill and taste can give 
our labor effectual and permanent protection, while leaving us all 
the advantage of a natural System of exchange. At home, since 
trade is unrestricted, there is, of course, nothing left any town or 
State but to protect itself by properly educating its labor, and thus 
re-enforcing whatever superior natural advantages it may possess. 
This it owes to itself as a State or town, and then to each child 
reared within its limits. 
GENERAL CHARACTER OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. 
The general character of this education should not be determined 
by merely local circumstances; for with perpetual migration, and 
in the absence of caste, there is no assurance that any American 
child will do what his father did before him, or will die where he 
first saw the light. Though born in the most secluded farmhouse, 
he should be treated as the child of the whole country, and so 
educated that he may have a fair chance with his fellows wherever 
he may make his home. By this it is not meant that he should be 
trained to a special knowledge of all kinds, or any kind, of labor, 
but that he should be made acquainted, through the study of lan- 
guage, mathematics, Science, and art, with the general principles 
which underlie them all, and with those practical applications 
which, without retarding the acquisition of principles, can be learned 
at the same time. General culture and a fair start in any pursuit 
dem and so much for all. Again : in determining what should be 
the general character of the education given American youth to-day, 
we must regard the present and prospective condition of things, 
and not educate on the basis of what was required fifty or twenty- 
five 3'ears.ago. We must also look abroad, recognizing the fact 
that American life and industry feel the influence of the remotest 
parts of the civilized globe. It is onlyby thus shaping the general 
form of American populär education that it can be made adequate 
to the requirements of the age.