II.  Equality of education.  In our American system there is, not only theoretically but practically, an equality of opportunity in the public schools, which are free to all children, and rise by gradations from the primaries to the high-schools, in which the curriculum in most respects equals, and in variety exceeds, that of many third-class “colleges.”  In these schools nearly the whole round of learning, in languages, science, and art, is touched.  The system has seemed to be the best that could be devised for a free society, where all take part in the government, and where so much depends upon the intelligence of the electors.  Certain objections, however, have been made to it.  As this essay is intended only to be tentative, we shall state some of them, without indulging in lengthy comments.

( 1. ) The first charge is superficiality—­a necessary consequence of attempting too much—­and a want of adequate preparation for special pursuits in life.

( 2. ) A uniformity in mediocrity is alleged from the use of the same text-books and methods in all schools, for all grades and capacities.  This is one of the most common criticisms on our social state by a certain class of writers in England, who take an unflagging interest in our development.  One answer to it is this:  There is more reason to expect variety of development and character in a generally educated than in an ignorant community; there is no such uniformity as the dull level of ignorance.

( 3. ) It is said that secular education—­and the general schools open to all in a community of mixed religions must be secular—­is training the rising generation to be materialists and socialists.

( 4. ) Perhaps a better-founded charge is that a system of equal education, with its superficiality, creates discontent with the condition in which a majority of men must be—­that of labor—­a distaste for trades and for hand-work, an idea that what is called intellectual labor (let us say, casting up accounts in a shop, or writing trashy stories for a sensational newspaper) is more honorable than physical labor; and encourages the false notion that “the elevation of the working classes” implies the removal of men and women from those classes.

We should hesitate to draw adverse conclusions in regard to a system yet so young that its results cannot be fairly estimated.  Only after two or three generations can its effects upon the character of a great people be measured:  Observations differ, and testimony is difficult to obtain.  We think it safe to say that those states are most prosperous which have the best free schools.  But if the philosopher inquires as to the general effect upon the national character in respect to the objections named, he must wait for a reply.

III.  The pursuit of the chimera of social equality, from the belief that it should logically follow political equality; resulting in extravagance, misapplication of natural capacities, a notion that physical labor is dishonorable, or that the state should compel all to labor alike, and in efforts to remove inequalities of condition by legislation.