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through these divisions, that popular education is, and ought 

 to be, chiefly carried forward. The one hundred thousand 

 dollars furnished annually by the State for the support of com- 

 mon schools, does not exceed the thirteen hundredth part of 

 the whole annual expense. The rest is furnished entirely 

 through the medium of the county and town administrations, 

 with the aid of tuition fees. The whole outlay for the con- 

 struction of school-houses, in which more than two millions 

 are invested, for the repairs of these houses, their furniture and 

 their fuel, falls, self imposed, on the taxable property of the 

 towns. Besides this, the same property of the towns, receiv- 

 ing the bounty of the State, is also twice taxed for the sup- 

 port of teachers ; once by the administration of the county and 

 again by their own. 



Nothing can be more admirable than the foundation which 

 is here laid for a system of adequate universal instruction. 

 The principles really involved in it need nothing but that they 

 should be carried into vigorous execution. There is a blend- 

 ing of authority with moral suasion, and of constraint with 

 freedom, which is not only just in itself and adapted to our 

 institutions, but belongs truly to the spirit of the age. The 

 only fault I have to find is, that in the present state of the sub- 

 ject and in the present condition of the people, the authority is 

 not exerted with sufficient steadiness and effect, while the moral 

 force wants the aid of other and higher sanctions; that the 

 constraint is too feeble, and the freedom too free. 



Setting out Avith the proposition, which no man does or 

 ought to doubt, that popular education of an elevated charac- 

 ter is a work of indispensable necessity and obligation in our 

 country, just as much so as the support of government itself, 

 I see now no good reason why it should not be made a legal 

 condition of the existence of every town in the State as a dis- 

 tinct corporation, that the necessary provision shall be made 

 for primary instruction within it, according to its numbers, and 

 according to the standard prescribed by public authority. S uch 

 provision would embrace the requisite buildings and their fur- 

 niture and supplies, and so much for teachers' wages as would 

 meet the probable deficiency in the funds for that object, after 



