History of the public school system of California.

246 PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SCHOOL SCHOOL.
School, will have the same relation to the Government that the
graduate of West Point or of the Naval Academy has, and thus step
by step the hitherto unrewarded and despised profession of teaching shall be exalted and ennobled. Do I believe in this good time
coming? Most assuredly I do. The time has already come when
war is no longer a necessity, and that nation is the most civilized
which can most easily dispense with it. The reign of words, too,
is almost over; dogmas, religious or political, no longer fetter the
nations; thought is free as air. Literature must take the back seat;
while the arts, leading science, make the circuit of the world. Between the standing armies of soldiers, which tell how imperfect still
is human government, and the sitting armies of sophists, whose
mission it is to perpetuate existing evils, another great army is
being drilled-the army of labor-in which we shall find the most
practical philosophy, the broadest intelligence, and the most Christian patriotism.
Little more than two hundred years ago, Sir William Berkeley,
Governor of Virginia, said: "Thank God, there are no free schools
nor printing presses here, and I hope there will be none for an
hundred years, for learning has brought heresy and sects into the
world, and printing has divulged these and other libels." The
ghost of Sir William flits in a few remote corners of our land, but
the spirit of modern inquiry forbids that it shall be materialized.
With conscious pride, the farmers and laboring men of America
are building a commonwealth whose spirit shall be peace on earth
and good will to man; whose weapon, suffrage; whose conservatism,
education; whose objects are freedom, order, and economy within
our own boundaries, and an eternal brotherhood with those who
are our wider neighbors.