4.5. 5. Of Education in a Republican Government.
It is in a republican government that the whole power of education
is required. The fear of despotic governments naturally arises of itself
amidst threats and punishments; the honour of monarchies is favoured by
the passions, and favours them in its turn; but virtue is a
self-renunciation, which is ever arduous and painful.
This virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our
country. As such love requires a constant preference of public to
private interest, it is the source of all private virtues; for they are
nothing more than this very preference itself.
This love is peculiar to democracies. In these alone the government
is entrusted to private citizens. Now a government is like everything
else: to preserve it we must love it.
Has it ever been known that kings were not fond of monarchy, or that
despotic princes hated arbitrary power?
Everything therefore depends on establishing this love in a
republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of
education: but the surest way of instilling it into children is for
parents to set them an example.
People have it generally in their power to communicate their ideas
to their children; but they are still better able to transfuse their
passions.
If it happens otherwise, it is because the impressions made at home
are effaced by those they have received abroad.
It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled
till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.
