The Speech that Saved Free Public Schools in PA in 1834

[JPZenger]

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/people/4277/stevens,_thaddeus/443778

In 1834, Thaddeous Stevens was a member of the State House. The Legislature had passed a law establishing the first system of statewide free public schools. There was immediately pressure to abolish the act before it went into effect, including pressure from the PA. Germans who opposed English language schools. Stevens turned the tide and saved the system with the following speech:

"It would seem to be humiliating to be under the necessity, in the nineteenth century, of entering into a formal argument to prove the utility, and to free governments, the absolute necessity of education…Such necessity would be degrading to a Christian age and a free republic. If an elective republic is to endure for any great length of time, every elector must have sufficient information, not only to accumulate wealth and take care of his pecuniary concerns, but to direct wisely the Legislatures, the Ambassadors, and the Executive of the nation; for some part of all these things, some agency in approving or disapproving of them, falls to every freeman. If, then, the permanency of our government depends upon such knowledge, it is the duty of government to see that the means of information be diffused to every citizen. This is a sufficient answer to those who deem education a private and not a public duty—who argue that they are willing to educate their own children, but not their neighbor's children.

I trust that when we come to act on this question, we shall take lofty ground-look beyond the narrow space which now circumscribes our vision-beyond the passing, fleeting point of time on which we stand-and so cast our votes that the blessing of education shall be conferred on every son of Pennsylvania, shall be carried home to the poorest child of the poorest inhabitant of the meanest hut of your mountains, so that even he may be prepared to act well his part in this land of freedom, and lay on earth a broad and solid foundation for that enduring knowledge which goes on increasing through increasing eternity."

In the school vote, he criticized his colleagues for favoring, without question, measures that would improve the breed of hogs, but economizing on measures to improve the breed of men.

Stevens went onto become a strong abolitionist, and probably ran a stop in the Underground Railroad from his home. His long-time live-in housekeeper was an African American woman who was probably his life partner, and who helped him raise his nephews.

Stevens directed that he be buried at a cemetery far out of town because it was the one cemetery that did not require segregation of whites and blacks.