HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY. 
 
constructed from parts of the same plan; it has 
no relation to anything. His life is not formed 
of a single tissue, but is composed of inlaid 
work, joined, and not woven together. 
On the other hand, where all human action is 
energized by the free act of an intelligent will, 
unity of purpose economizes the faculties, re- 
doubles their energy by concentrating them, and 
makes them conspire together to lend each 
other mutual   aid.   But   there  can  be 
this unity only where there is law   which 
assigns and preserves to each thing its rank; 
in society, this is administered  by public 
authority; in the arts, by genius; by reason, 
in the sciences, and in the conduct of life, by 
self control; but by self control, only so far as it 
is the minister of virtue. 
Again * Education is the handmaid of inspi- 
ration, which makes men of talent, while ex- 
perience, men of skill; the first conceive, the 
second execute.  These observations do not 
apply merely to works of art, and the man- 
agement of affairs; they apply equally to the 
general plan of our conduct, in which our 
morality and happiness are involved. Here the 
application seems less evident; manifestly the 
State should have nothing to do with the re- 
ligious training of its youth, only so far as a 
common and highly acceptable code of morals 
is concerned ; and yet the child must be cared 
for to agr'eater degree than the parent or guard- 
ian is able to reach, or else that fabric of edu- 
cation founded by our fathers, though broad, 
philanthropic and intensive, must yield to the 
,inevitable and fail of its most important result, 
namely, to educate the child wholly, symmetri- 
cally. Is it not a deplorable fact, that those 
minds whom nature has endowed with eminent 
power, and treated with especial favor, and 
which at the same time have grown up without 
training, are lamentably deficient in perse- 
verance ? We can almost assert that persever- 
ance is a compensation granted to mediocrity. 
Not unfrequently, distinguished minds have 
 
sentiments superior to their station, and views 
more extensive than the sphere in which they 
are placed. They contain mysterious things 
within themselves, for which they cannot ac- 
count, and which being developed, modify 
their dispositions. Let nature's sunshine of 
genius enter the soul of the uneducated child, 
let him grow to man's estate, and he will be 
exposed to be diverted from, and to mistake, 
the course which is suitable for him and to be 
dissatisfied with whatever he has begun, he 
seems to struggle with destiny; nature is full 
of problems of vast promise, but he has no key 
to their solution. Moreover, he is unable to 
guide himself by his experience, for it has been 
nothing but disaster, disappointment he can- 
not penetrate into unexplored regions, as they 
rise higher and higher, he can find no well 
beaten track, he gets entangled in the midst of 
trackless, wild woods, and yawning precipices, 
he is always forced to retrace every advance, 
to abandon every enterprise, however munifi- 
cently it may reward his educated brother. 
He is thus driven to abandon all that his sen- 
tient soul prom)ts ; moved by his heterogene- 
ous impulses, he is drifted by cruel, luckless, 
hapless chance. 
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 
If the reader has gone with thte writer care- 
fully over the preceding pages, he will now, of 
his own accord, both ask and answer the fol- 
lowing momentous- question: Were not our 
fathers, who framed and so exactly perfected 
our school system, fully aware of their respon- 
sibility to the children of the whole country ? 
Our condition in life furnishes us the most 
important part of the circumstances which 
educate us, and influence our character more 
than all the lessons of our masters; and though 
independent of our will in some respects, yet 
it is modified by our co-operation, and even by 
the manner in which we resign ourselves to 
what is inevitable. Fully aware of this, our 
fathers laid the foundations of the common 
school system, not for their own day, not to 
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