ON UN1VEESAL AND FEEE EDUCATION. 495 



population increased. The founders of these schools also 

 left upon record their opinion that the children loere the 

 property of the State, and that, to complete these plans, 

 education should be provided for the masses free their 

 view being, that this was the only certain way of per 

 manently securing the blessings of the Reformation. 



There is no reason to believe that these enlightened 

 views were peculiar to the Scottish Eeformers, and not 

 common to them with the leading German and Swiss 

 religionists, and with the Puritans of England. From 

 Europe they were carried across the Atlantic by those 

 who at a later period migrated for conscience sake to the 

 shores of New England. There no avaricious nobles or 

 large landed proprietors, less concerned for the general 

 welfare, prevented the scheme from being fully carried 

 out. All were alike poor, and a permanent law was with 

 out opposition enacted, containing within itself a principle 

 of expansion which enabled it to adjust the supply of 

 instruction to the wants of an increasing people. And 

 thus in 1642 seventy-five years after the death of Knox 

 (1572) the plan he would fain have perfected in his own 

 was fairly established in a far distant country. It is thus 

 to circumstance and opportunity, more than to exclusive 

 intelligence and liberality in the early settlers, that New 

 England owes the great blessings of its educational 

 system. It will be for the general good of mankind that 

 their own energy, watchfulness, and love of true learn 

 ing, should secure it unimpaired to the latest period. It 

 will be for the special benefit of us at home if the re-echo 

 of our own thunder, returning after a lapse of two cen 

 turies, shall lead us at last to perfect the idea of our fore 

 fathers on their native soil. * 



March 26. Before leaving North America, I wished 



* The educational movements now in progress in Manchester and in 

 Scotland are doubtless promoted by the proceedings of our American 

 brethren. 



