may receive, with proper management, about six months' common schooling, will not the People, witnessing these moral and intellectual improvements, look with intenser interest to their respective State Legislatures, as the immediate dispensers of these benefits? And will not the Legislature of each State, viewing the increase of common schools, and the augmented amount of schooling, and perceiving their benign and salutary effects upon the mind, morals, and habits of the rising generation, look with increased steadiness to the Federal Head, whence these blessings flow? Common schools, of themselves, will not multiply, nor learning spread: means and opportunity must be afforded. By affording them, schools will multiply, learning spread, and ignorance, idleness, and vice, gradually give way to intelligence, industry, and virtue. Examples of these cheering results are not wanting. Let any man compare the calendar of profligacy and crimes among a given population where no schools have been kept, with that among an equal population where the means of common education have been abundant, and the great difference in favour of the latter cannot fail to convince him of the necessity of these initiatory institutions. The States and the People, perceiving these results, and learning from experience that the influence, respectability, and power, of a State, are in proportion to the intelligence and soundness of its citizens, will cherish the Federal hand that aids them, and cling with stronger affection to the Governments of their choice.

The Committee are not unaware that there is, in this pecuniary connection, a seeming tendency to produce an undue dependence of the States upon the Federal Government. They are persuaded, however, that a little examination will dissipate this cause of alarm. The strength of the tie, and the degree of the dependence, it is fair to presume, will always be in exact proportion to the actual benefits resulting from the proposed fund. If the fund be not beneficial, it can have no influence, good or bad. Suppose great benefits to flow from it, what are they? Shall we hereafter look for them in the increased ignorance and subdued spirits of our fellow citizens? or shall we find and feel them everywhere in the rapid progress of education, and in the improvement of mind and morals? If it be true, as it unquestionably is, that the safety and success of our political institutions depends absolutely upon the intelligence and virtue of the people; and, if it be true, also, that the direct effect of the proposed fund will be to increase that intelligence and virtue, then it is equally true, that there can be no undue dependence of the people or the States, upon the Federal Government. As these benefits increase, so also will increase the ability and means of detecting and resisting the encroachments of power. Although

each part of our political system is dependent upon the other, yet there is a wide difference between that dependence which springs from mean or guilty motives, and that which has for its end the union and strength, the happiness and glory, of a generous people. - And, whatever other men may be disposed to do, that portion of the People to whom our governments, whether federal or State, in prosperity or adversity, must look for protection and defence, if intelligent and virtuous, will never do slavish homage, or tamely surrender their liberties to an earthly power.

The proposed measure, the committee are also induced to believe, will have a most salutary effect in respect to the public domain itself, and all the great interests connected with it. There is much apathy in the public mind, in regard to the value and importance of these lands. Strong indications are manifested to reduce their price, and to bring the whole into market as speedily as practicable, and without any reference to the existing demand for them. Should this happen, the consequence will be, to depreciate the fair average value of land, whether cultivated or uncultivated, by putting more into the market than could be occupied perhaps in fifty or a hundred years to come; to fling the best of them into the hands of moneyed men and speculators, by their cheapness and the prospect of gain; and to retard cultivation and population by the high prices at which they would be held. The Committee think the proposed measure will produce a counteracting interest, an interest which, while it guards the public domain from sudden depreciation on the one hand, and from speculation on the other, will induce a more rapid and a sounder population.

There is another consideration connected with this subject which the Committee cannot pass over in silence. Our government was the first successful effort among men to establish rational liberty. Our fathers instituted and secured, upon the broadest principles of equality, representation, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and religious toleration; and, to this hour, it stands a proud example to the world, unsurpassed, unequalled. The young and interesting republics of Spanish America have, perhaps, come as near to it as the condition and habits of their people would permit. Still there is this marked difference: they retain in some degree the old connection of church and state. They have an established religion. Now, if any one proposition in politics or morals be more susceptible of demonstration than another, it would seem to be this, that, where any religion is established by law, there neither the tongue nor the conscience can be free. As ours was the first, so it may be the last hope of civil liberty. No other considerable place remains on the globe where a second effort can be made under like auspices. The continents

and the islands of the sea, are mostly inhabited by men, born under governments, and brought up under the influence of principles and habits, with few exceptions, utterly hostile to our notions of freedom. Since this is so, our obligations do not end with ourselves. We owe much to the great cause of liberty. This debt we can discharge the best and the most honourably by securing well the foundation and superstructure of our own liberties; thus giving to the human family the influence of a perfect example of civil freedom. The foundation of our political institutions, it is well known, rests in the will of the People, and the safety of the whole superstructure, its temple and altar, daily and hourly depend upon the discreet exercise of this will. How then is this will to be corrected, chastened, subdued? By education-that education, the first rudiments of which can be acquired only in common schools. How are the millions of American citizens to be enabled to compare their government and institutions with those of other countries? to estimate the civil and political privileges and blessings they enjoy? and to decide understandingly, whether they ought or ought not to protect and defend the Constitutions under which they live?-By education. Has the Legislature of each State provided all the means that are wanted to this end? Is there nothing more to be done? Are all sufficiently educated? There are some wealthy men, and many a poor man, in our land, whose family and fireside have never yet been cheered by the light and benefits of common education. Is there then no necessity for the proposed measure? Its advantages must be admitted. That there are heads and hearts among us waiting for instruction, cultivation, improvement, will not be denied. And, that the means are still wanted, (through the inability or indifference of individuals and of the States,) to accomplish this great purpose, cannot be doubted. Why then delay? We are at peace with the world. Our burthens are light. We have money to meet all the engagements and exigencies of the Government, and some to spare.

But, if need be, push not so rapidly, nor so far, the costly defences of the country. The tooth of time will wear away the granite. Our strong fortresses and gallant ships will decay. But the young mind and heart, expanded, enlightened, and disciplined, in common schools, will grow brighter and sounder by age. Besides, our reliance under God for protection is upon the arm of flesh. The impassable rampart to our liberties and institutions must be composed of intelligent heads and sound hearts. Our panoply, in peace or war, must be the heaving bosoms and vigorous arms of enlightened and virtuous freemen. Shall we not then afford to all, especially to the ignorant, the poor, the destitute, the means at our command, the only means perhaps by which they can ever

acquire knowledge? Who are first to be benefitted? The children of farmers, mechanics, and manufacturers. Where do we look, and where must we look, for the moral and physical power of the nation? To the agricultural and mechanic interests-to the handicraftsmen of the land. Unsoundness here will be fatal. It is rottenness at the heart. Is knowledge power? Does our power, do our liberties, do all we hold dear, depend upon the WILL of our fellow men, whether that will be left to the guidance of enlightened reason, or of untempered ignorance? And shall we not provide the means we have at hand of teaching the ignorant and destitute to range themselves beneath the Eagle, and among the defenders of freedom? Or shall we neglect them altogether, and leave them to be schooled and disciplined by the Catilines and Caesars of the day? Believing, therefore, that a portion of the proceeds of the public lands may be spared; that the diffusion of common education among the People is demanded by the highest considerations of national glory and safety, and that Congress possesses both the power and the right to appropriate them for this purpose, the Committee submit the following bill.

A bill creating a fund for the support of Common Schools in the several States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, on the first day of January, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and twentyseven, and annually thereafter, there shall be, and hereby is, appropriated, fifty percentum of the nett proceeds of the moneys accruing from the sales and entries of the public lands, for the support, exclusively, of Common Schools in the several States.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said fifty per centum of moneys aforesaid, shall be annually invested, by the United States, in some productive fund, the interest or other proceeds of which shall be annually apportioned among the several States, according to the established ratio of the representation of each State in the House of Representatives of the United States, at the time every such apportionment shall be made, to be applied to the sole use and benefit of common schools, in such manner as the Legislature of each State may, by law, direct.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That this act, at any time, after ten years from the passing thereof, may be altered, modified, or repealed.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF MASSACHUSETTS.

[We present to our readers the following Act at full length; as it is not only a subject of present and uncommon interest to the community, but has a prospective aspect towards the improvement of education for the generations which shall succeed us.

This subject is one of peculiar importance to School-committees, throughout the State; and we shall feel gratified, if our pages can be rendered serviceable to the purposes of this Act, by aiding in a more extensive dissemination of its requisitions.

Our readers, we have no doubt, remember that, at the close of the Report of the Commissioners appointed by the Legislature to inquire into the expediency of establishing a practical seminary in Massachusetts, it is explicitly stated, that every rational endeavor to improve the condition of instruction, must be based upon a thorough investigation of the present state of the public schools in this commonwealth.]

AN ACT further to provide for the instruction of Youth, (passed March, 1826.) SEC. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same,(That each town in this Commonwealth, shall, at the annual March or April meeting, choose a School Committee, consisting of not less than five persons, who shall have the general charge and superintendence of all the public schools in said town; and it shall be the duty of said committee, to visit the schools in said town, which are kept through the year, at least once a quarter, for the purpose of making a careful examination of the same, and to see that the scholars are properly supplied with books: also, to inquire into the regulation and discipline of such schools, and the proficiency of the scholars therein; and it shall also be the duty of said committee, to visit each of the district schools in said town, for the purposes aforesaid, on some day during the first week of the commencement thereof, and also on some day during the last two weeks of the same;—and it shall, further, be the duty of one or more of said committee to visit all the schools in the town at least once a month, for the purposes afore mentioned, without giving previous notice thereof to the instructers. And it is hereby further made the duty of said committee, to require full and satisfactory evidence of the good character and qualifications of said instructers, conformably to the laws now in force relating to the subject; or to require them to furnish such other evidence of character and qualifications, as shall