Objections Considered.

VARIOUS objections are made both to the

policy and legality of any measure proposing the national aid to education, but more especially to one which does not put the distribution and application of the fund entirely within the control of the individual States. First and most important of these objections is the following:

Congress has not the constitutional authority to levy taxes or appropriate funds for such purpose. This objection comes too late. It has already been determined by numerous precedents that

the Government has such power.

Under various

acts nearly two billion acres of the public domain have already been appropriated for the purposes of education. Schools have been established, funds have been created for the establishment in different States of institutions of a peculiar class or character, and the whole course of the Government tends to show an almost universal concurrence in the idea that the power "to promote science and the useful arts" must include that master-key to all science and art, the general intelligence of the citizen and the prevalence among all classes of the people of that rudimentary knowledge without which neither science nor art can flourish.

But in the view which we have taken of this subject the authority of Congress to appropriate funds for the primary education of the citizen rests upon a much broader basis-the authority granted in the Constitution to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." It rests upon the same fundamental principle as the various acts and appropriations for the support of the Military Academy at West Point or the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The great controlling purpose of such

appropriation is to secure public peace, promote the national power, and establish the national welfare and prosperity, by giving to its citizens an opportunity to learn the duties of citizenship, to perform the functions devolved upon them as component elements of our national power, to cement and strengthen their allegiance and devotion to the Government and the principles upon which it is founded. If there was ever a measure proposed which was clearly and unmistakably within the scope and purpose of this broad and essential power, it is the one which we are now considering. It is essential to the common defense because it tends to unity of sentiment, suppression of discord, and the removal of causes which might easily result in domestic violence. It promotes the national welfare because it enables the citizen to comprehend and perform his duties, to protect himself against fraud and violence, to understand and appreciate the rights and privileges conferred upon him; and it strengthens his adhesion and devotion to the Government. Moreover, this constitutional objection, it will be observed, whether it count for much or little, applies just as strongly to the one plan of distribution as to the other. If the

Nation has not the right to levy taxes and distribute funds through its own agencies, it very clearly has no right to apportion those funds among the different States.

The second objection is that the general government has no right to appropriate funds for the benefit of classes or individuals.

Those who urge this objection seem to be laboring under the impression that national aid to education is to be given solely for the benefit and advantage of those individuals and classes receiving instruction. Such is not at all the principle on which public instruction, whether State or National, is based. The State does not educate the citizen for his own sake. It does not bestow the rudiments of education or the elements of science for the sake of the individual. The whole theory of public instruction is based upon the principle of public benefit to be derived therefrom. The fact that the individual receives advantage thereby is entirely secondary and subordinate to this main object. The fact that education increases individual opportunity and power, opens to the instructed the avenues of wealth and prosperity, enables him to pursue avocations from which he would otherwise be

excluded in short, the fact that intelligence directly or indirectly elevates, strengthens, and in all respects improves the individual, while a very pleasant and agreeable incident of public instruction, would yet constitute an entirely insufficient reason for the establishment of such systems. No fact can be clearer, both from fundamental reasoning and constitutional consideration, than the proposition that a government, whether State or National, has no right to tax A for the benefit of B, C, or D, or for any class or number of individuals. It is only upon the ground that the ignorance of B, C, and D is an element of weakness, expense, or peril to the State or the Nation that it becomes permissible to employ public funds for the removal of such peril or for the enhancement of public prosperity by the lessening of expenditure or the increase of productive capacity. The right of the Nation to secure the general intelligence of its citizens is even more limited than this. The State as such-the subordinate republic of our Federal Union-is interested directly in increasing the productive capacity and the power of self-support of each one of her citizens. One of the first great duties of a modern government is to provide for the support