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learning the lesson that alike to individuals and peoples, igno- 

 rance means waste and weakness, if not pauperism and crime, 

 and that education tends to economy, thrift and virtue. 



But there is a great acceleration in the working of moral 

 and intellectual forces so that now in a decade, sometimes in a 

 single j^ear, are accomplished broader results than formerly in a 

 century. The day for coercion and dictation is passing. The 

 growing assimilation and power of public sentiment is felt the 

 world over. It has broken down the walls of China, the isola- 

 tion of Japan, the serfdom of Eussia, the slavery of America, 

 and is now rapidly relaxing the grasp of tyranny even in that 

 center of oriental despotism, Turkey. But nowhere else is 

 public sentiment so supreme in its influence as in America, 

 and never before has that sentiment been so strong in favor of 

 the support of free public schools as to-day. 



A striking illustration, both of the difference and power of 

 public sentiment, was furnished more than a century ago by 

 the replies sent by two American colonies to questions put by 

 the English Commissioners for Foreign Plantations. The Grov- 

 ernor of Virginia replied, " 1 thank Grod we have no free 

 schools or printing presses, and I hope we shall not have these 

 hundred years.'' The Governor of Connecticut answered, 

 " One-fourth the annual revenues of the Colony is laid out in 

 maintaining free schools for the education of our children." 

 Accordingly, till after the late civil war, Yirginia had no gen- 

 eral public school system. Thomas Jefferson ])repared with 

 his own hand a bill for a free school system, of which he said, 

 " By this bill, the people will be qualified to understand their 

 rights and to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence 

 their parts in self-government. Provided for all children 

 alike, rich and poor, the expenses of these schools will be 

 borne by the inhabitants of each county, in proportion to 

 their general tax-rates, and all this will be effected without the 

 violation of a single natural right of any individual citizen." 

 Jefferson caused the words, "Founder of the University" to 

 be inscribed on his tombstone, but he placed a far higher esti- 

 mate on free schools than on "superior education." Though 

 defeated in this cherished plan, he defended it to the last, and 

 said shortly before his death, " Were it necessary to give up 



