330 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



liko these : Ought the public to pay for a benefit which is wholly or chiefly 

 private ? Should one be taxed to educate tiie children of others in matters of 

 wliich the advantage is not chiefly a public one? Is it equal or just that the 

 physician, the fanner, the lawyer, should be educated at the expense of the 

 merchant, the manufacturer, the mechanic? Is there no limit to the number 

 of branches of learning which the government should undertake to teach? 

 And it is useless to deny that the answers suggested by these questions have 

 force, and are entitled to careful consideration. 



I do not, however, propose to discuss these points here, but shall take ground 

 upon which all can stand, viz. : That there ought to be provided at public 

 expense such education as will prepare the youth to act well the part of good 

 citizens. In other words, the State should give her youth a thorough acquaint- 

 ance with the common branches of English education, and train them to be 

 active, healthy, and vigorous in body and mind, and strong in patriotism, 

 morality, and practical intelligence. There is much complaint and a wide- 

 spread conviction that the duty of the public in this respect is not properly 

 discharged. 



Believing that there is great reason for this conviction, and taking it for 

 granted that you are all anxious to correct the defects of our school system, 

 and so perfect and perpetuate it, I propose briefly to suggest some points 

 wherein prompt measures for improvement seem demanded, , 



Though the State should attempt no more, it is evident that she would do a 

 great work well if she should succeed in so administering a system of educa- 

 tion as to cause her young citizens to grow up, as I have said, active, healthy, 

 and vigorous in body and mind, and strong in patriotism, morality, and 

 practical intelligence; and it requires no argument to convince you that these 

 qualities can best be secured, and only fully secured, by giving careful atten* 

 tion to them early in the life of the pupil. These, the chief objects of edu- 

 cation by the State, must be attained, if attained at all, in the common 

 schools. It is while in these schools that the conditions upon which the 

 healthy growth of the embryo citizen in these characteristics depends, are 

 most liable to perversion, and most susceptible of correction. It is at this age- 

 that the young minds form the images of patriotism, morality, and duty that 

 will in all probability attend them through life. If those images are grand' 

 and stately so they will be apt to remain. If thorough inefliciency, ignorance,, 

 or neglect on the part of the officers or the teachers, those images are dwarfed 

 and deformed, the State will find that she is warming in her bosom a brood of 

 vipers. But if on the other hand these schools be conducted in the manner 

 best calculated to make these ideas correct and ingrained, and to establish 

 health of body, giving the information and inclination necessary to secure its. 

 continued preservation, thereby insuring a healthy mind, together with 

 systematic training in the common school branches of education, the com- 

 munity is performing a great duty well. 



Thus far there is no question the State ought to go. These interests are 

 primary, fundamental, common, public. That they be fostered is directly for 

 the benefit of the State — for the equal advantage of every good, loyal citizen. 

 No class or individual can properly be said to be benefited at the expense of 

 any other class or individual. It follows that whatever is to be the fate of the 

 higher branches of our school system, the common school must be perpetuated. 

 And though the higher schools be preserved in their integrity, it must be 

 admitted that the common schools involve infinitely the greater interests both 

 from the multitudes who are instructed in them as well as from the ease with- 



