but are taught much, which will be useful to them in life. In the winter months an instructor is employed, and arithmetic, geography, and history, are added to the studies of the summer schools. These schools bring together for instruction those children and youth, whose labour is too valuable to be dispensed with, in the season which gives the agriculturist most employment. The total expense of a school of this kind amounts to from six to ten dollars per week; and it contains from thirty to eighty, or a hundred scholars.

Such are the schools where the mass of the people must begin, and now, end their education. The next in order from the primary schools were the grammar schools, properly so called. These were established by the law of 1789, in all towns containing two hundred families. The object and the tendency of these higher schools were, to raire the standard of instruction, and elicit talents and genius wherever they might be found. Many through the medium of these schools have found their way to the University, and become distinguished in society, who might otherwise never have known their own powers, or thought it possible to aspire to the advantages of a public education. But this part of the system has never received that attention, which its importance demands. It has always been viewed with prejudice, and been thought to be an institution for the accommodation of a few, at the expense of the many. In many places, for want of a thor

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ough knowledge of the subject, those for whose particular advantage the grammar schools were intended, have been most opposed to their support. The law, therefore, has been borne with impatience, has been explained away and evaded,―till at length, the prejudice has been sent into the legislature, and the whole provision is struck out of the statute book. At least, the remnant which remains can be of no possible use for the encouragement of the schools. All towns in the Commonwealth are now excused from supporting grammar schools, except five or six of the most populous. And these are precisely the towns, which least need legislative interference. A law of the legislature to oblige Boston, for example, to make appropriations for schools, is preposterous, when that city already expends upon the education of its children and youth, nearly as much as the whole remaining state. But during the series of years, while the grammar schools have been neglected, the friends of the free schools have had an appeal to those liberal and enlightened minds, which could better foresee the happy effects of a different policy. And this appeal has never been made in vain. Whenever the public interest in schools has declined or been diverted, by the various necessities, which press upon a people, in a comparatively new country, it has soon been roused again, and stimulated in the proper direction. If appropriations have not been so liberal as might be wished, those have always been found, who would encourage the cause

by endowments for schools of a higher order. These schools or academies, as they are more frequently called, have been generally founded by individuals, and afterwards made corporations with grants of land or money from the State authorities. They have now become very numerous throughout New England. In Massachusetts, they are found in every county, and oftentimes within ten or fifteen miles of each other. They have generally been made a class above the grammar schools. Here, young men are prepared for teachers in the primary schools,-for mercantile life,-or for the University. This class of schools is not entirely free. The instructer is supported in part by the proceeds of funds, which have arisen from private or public munificence; and in part, by a tax on each scholar. For the rich and those in easy circumstances, these schools answer the same, and probably a better purpose, than the grammar schools, contemplated by the late law; but they are out of the reach of the poor. Many a poor and industrious man would spare the labour of his son, and give him an opportunity to learn, perhaps to fit for college, while the means were in his own town, who could but ill afford a considerable tax for tuition, and the price of board in a neighbouring town. This will be the effect of the repeal of the school law. The rich, at a little more expense to be sure, but that is of no consequence with them, will patronize and improve the condition of the academies for their own accommodation; while

the poor will be left with no advantages above the primary schools. One avenue, and that a broad and easy one for the progress of genius in humble life, is now shut on a large proportion of the community; and talents,

"Th' applause of listening senates to command," are doomed to a virtual death by the operation of this measure. Its effects are the more to be dreaded, because they will follow their cause slowly, and be felt most at some distant period, when it will be most difficult to trace the evil to its source. The means of education, though the most powerful instrument, by which a government may effect the character of the people, are not an instrument, by which they can produce an immediate result. As the good to be expected from liberal appropriations, though sure to follow, is realized to the country, only at a distance from the outfit; so the evils of withholding encouragement, though as sure to follow, are still at a distance. But happy experience ought to have taught this community, how to estimate the magnitude of the good and evil of the different policies, even though they are at a distance. We are now in the possession and enjoyment of those advantages for education, purchased by the sacrifices of our ancestors. And the question in regard to appropriations at the present day, is, whether we shall transmit those advantages unimpaired to posterity; or whether we shall shut our eyes on the future, and suffer the animating and vivifying princi

ple of our free government to be extinguished by neglect, or perverted by a heedless and inefficient encouragement. We all profess the deepest veneration for the character of the pilgrims, and those characters, who laid the foundation of our free government; and can we consistently depart from those traits in their policy, which have måde them venerable, and our government free? To praise the institutions and happy state of our country, and to congratulate ourselves on the free enjoyment of them, is not so much to praise ourselves, as it is to praise. the liberal and enlightened policy of those, by whose wisdom and foresight we have inherited such privileges and happiness. Posterity will judge of our policy, at some future period, by its effects on their condition, as we now judge of the policy of our ancestors, by its effects on our condition. If we compare the encouragement afforded to schools and seminaries of learning, by the pilgrims of Plymouth and New England, with their resources; and then in connexion, compare the encouragement afforded them at the present day, with our resources; we shall be astonished and disgusted with our niggardly and parsimonious policy. We seem to rely entirely upon the liberality and munificence of individuals to redeem our degeneracy in this respect. What would our ancestors have though of their posterity, those ancestors, who nearly two hundred years since, amidst all the embarrassments of a new settlement, provided by law for the support of grammar schools