An Essay on the Evils of Popular IgnoranceFoster, John
Philosophy
An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance
Foster, John
Education; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Literacy; Missions -- India; Religious education
with an accompanying liberal yet gradual concession of privileges to the
people, would have prevented the catastrophe.
Let us urge, then, that a zealous endeavor to render it absolutely
impossible that, in any change whatever, the destinies of a nation should
fall under the power of an ignorant infuriated multitude, may take place
of the presumption that there _is_ no great change to be ever effected by
the progressive and conscious importance of the people; a presumption than
which nothing can appear more like infatuation, when we look at the recent
scenes and present temperament of the moral world. Lay hold on the myriads
of juvenile spirits, before they have time to grow up through ignorance
into a reckless hostility to social order; train them to sense and good
morals: inculcate the principles of religion, simply and solemnly _as_
religion, as a thing directly of divine dictation, and not as if its
authority were chiefly in virtue of human institutions; let the higher
orders generally make it evident to the multitude that they are desirous
to raise them in value, and promote their happiness; and then _whatever_
the demands of the people as a body, thus improving in understanding and
the sense of justice, shall come to be, and _whatever_ modification their
preponderance may ultimately enforce on the great social arrangements, it
will be infallibly certain that there never _can_ be a love of disorder,
an insolent anarchy, a prevailing spirit of revenge and devastation. Such
a conduct of the ascendant ranks would, in this nation at least, secure
that, as long as the world lasts, there never would be any formidable
commotion, or violent sudden changes. All those modifications of the
national economy to which an improving people would aspire and would
deserve to obtain, would be gradually accomplished, in a manner by which
no party would be wronged, and all would be the happier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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