Speech #630393575

It is that literacy hasnot been the source of American: liberty or the cause of American greatness. and our lack of a commanding literature has sometimes been a cause of national reproach. Of the Pilgrims who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620 only a few could write their names. The majority of the preRevolutionary immigrants. like many of the postRevolutionary. were illiterate for the simple reason that public education In the American sense was unknown in the lands they. came from and public schools were few and far between. John Fiske. the historian. says that a body of immigrants that landed in New England from Ireland In 1694 contained over 50 per cent who could read and write. and he. adds that this was as rare as remarkable in the peoples who flocked to America in: that succeeding century. Then. as now. the men who faced the hazards of the tempestuous ocean and the perils of a savage continent were usually the bravest and most enterprising of their class. they had courage. strength. common sense. native ability. and a willingness to work out their own salvation in a new country. they founded settlements and built up Commonwealths by their own talents and labors and with scant aid from kings and governments. and as they laid broad and deep the foundations of law and liberty they added schools out of their meager means to give their children what they lacked. As Emerson has so wisely said. the farmer. laborer. artisan. fisherman. and chopper are the Commonwealth. not the lawyer. the.scholar. and the penman. these latter are in fact the parasites: of our civilization. not its creators and producers.