134 



and every child in a district, six dollars and eighty-four cents, 

 on the rate bills for tuition fees! Is it not evident to the 

 slightest inspection that this system is loaded with burthens 

 which it is wholly unable to bear? The very naming of them 

 is sufficient to break it down. 



What remains then, but to give up the whole object in de- 

 spair, or at once adopt a practicable and effective method, by 

 which its entire accomplishment may be compassed within the 

 Umit of the means with which alone we can operate? At 

 least, before we abandon the children of the repubhc to a doom 

 of ignorance, and of consequence the republic itself to certain 

 destruction, is it not better that any project which gives even 

 a plausible promise of improvement and relief, should be sub- 

 jected to examination, if not to trial? 



By the one now suggested it is seriously believed, that three 

 thousand competent men are enough to do the work of popu- 

 lar instruction for the four hundred and fifty thousand children 

 found in our State between the appropriate common school 

 ages of seven and fourteen * If so, the w^hole expense of in- 

 struction, with salaries of $400 to the teachers, instead of the 

 $70 which they now get, may be met with an outlay of $1,- 

 200,000. Of the sum to be paid in each large district for wa- 

 ges, ($400) the public monies now devoted to this purpose 

 will furnish one quarter, provided only, that that part of the 

 taxation on the property of the towns which is now voluntary, 

 be made, as it ought to be, coercive and obligatory. An ave- 

 rage tuition fee of one dollar and three quarters per year for 

 each scholar will make up the residue of the sum. And if 

 even this small amount should be found to be oppressive, es- 

 pecially in the case of the poor and of those of moderate 

 means, relief might be easUy had by an inconsiderable in- 

 crease of the property tax, or a larger appropriation from the 

 State— a measure about which, if necessary to the support of 

 the system, all hesitation should be regarded as evincing a dis- 

 position to betray the mighty interests involved. 



