This was the great discovery of
our Puritan forefathers. They were the first lawgivers who saw clearly
and enforced practically the simple moral and political truth, that
knowledge was not an alms to be dependent on the chance charity of
private men or the precarious pittance of a trust-fund, but a sacred debt
which the Commonwealth owed to every one of her children. The opening of
the first grammar-school was the opening of the first trench against
monopoly in church and state; the first row of trammels and pothooks
which the little Shearjashubs and Elkanahs blotted and blubbered across
their copy-books, was the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.
The men who gave every man the chance to become a landholder, who made
the transfer of land easy, and put knowledge within the reach of all,
have been called narrow-minded, because they were intolerant. But
intolerant of what? Of what they believed to be dangerous nonsense,
which, if left free, would destroy the last hope of civil and religious
freedom. They had not come here that every man might do that which seemed
good in his own eyes, but in the sight of God. Toleration, moreover, is
something which is won, not granted. It is the equilibrium of neutralized
forces.
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