492 PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN THE STATE. 



be really so spent, it is not expended in -such a way as 

 to place the advantages of education within the reach of 

 all, and to benefit the State, through the elevation of the 

 moral condition and intellectual position of all. I do not 

 add that it is not spent in such a way as to exonerate 

 the State of its duty to impart light to all, because many 

 are, with us, still unwilling to admit as Mr Horace 

 Mann and his countrymen in Massachusetts do either 

 that every man has a natural right to education at the 

 hands of the State, or that it is an imperative duty upon 

 the State to place it within his reach. 



Notwithstanding this large provision of public instruc 

 tion in common schools and free academies, there are 

 many private schools in the larger towns of Massa 

 chusetts. Divisions in society have sprung up there, as 

 among ourselves, and many persons prefer to pay large 

 additional sums for private instruction, rather than allow 

 their children to incur the risk of acquiring improper habits, 

 or forming undesirable acquaintances, at a free academy. 

 In a town like Boston, the free schools and academies 

 are admirably adapted to cultivate both the minds and 

 the manners of the children and grandchildren of the 

 Irish and other poor immigrants who yearly crowd 

 into its harbour and streets. But intercourse with these 

 Irish descendants has the opposite effect upon the families 

 of the more respectable classes, and these are in a great 

 degree compelled, in self-defence, and at an expense which 

 some parents have complained to me as excessive, to 

 place their children in private schools. The sums actually 

 paid for private tuition in this way amount to about 

 one-fourth of all that is levied by tax for the support of 

 the free schools of the State. 



An attempt is about to be made in this State to set 

 aside a portion of the free-school fund to pay the salaries 

 of professors at the universities and colleges that col 

 legiate like school instruction may thus be offered freely 



