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erty, it is matter of indifference, whether the legislature or publick make any appropriations or provisions for schools or not. They can and will take care for themselves. These are not the classes of the community to suffer, when government withhold encouragement from the schools. It is the poor, who are to suffer. They must educate their children in free schools, and in their own neighborhood, or not educate them at all. The expense of tuition, of books, and of board at the academies are so appalling, as to put the advantages of those schools quite beyond the power of a vast proportion of the community. In the towns where academies happen to be fixed, the poor will of course derive some increased advantages; but these towns are so few compared with the whole, and the incident expenses for books and tuition are so considerable, that for all purposes of directly and efficiently educating the whole mass of the people, the academies may be left out of calculation. For not one in twenty, if one in fifty, throughout the State, will ever find their way to any of them.

If there is any one cause which has contributed more than others, to produce that remarkable degree of happiness and contentment, which pervade all classes of the people in New England, that cause is the successful operation of the system of Free Schools. The basis of the system is, that the property of all without distinction, shall be applied to the education of all. The principle and its operation were thus eloquently described by Mr. Webster, in the late convention for revising the constitution of Massachusetts. "For the purpose of publick instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation, in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether he, himself, have, or have not, children to be benefitted by the education, for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge, in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity, and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the

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whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and We hope for a security, beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well principled moral sentiment. We hope to continue, and to prolong the time, when, in the villages and farm houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep, within unbarred doors. And knowing that our government rests directly on the publick will, that we may preserve it, we endeavour to give a safe and proper direction to that publick will. We do not, indeed, expect all men to be philosophers, or statesmen; but we confidently trust, and our expectation of the duration of our system of government rests on that trust, that by the diffusion of general knowledge, and good and virtuous sentiments, the political fabrick may be secure, as well against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow but sure undermining of licentiousness.

"I rejoice, that every man in this community may call all property his own, so far as he has occasion for it, to furnish for himself and his children, the blessings of religious instruction and the elements of knowledge. This celestial, and this earthly light, he is entitled to, by the fundamental laws. It is every poor man's undoubted birth-right, it is the great blessing, which this constitution has secured to him, it is his solace in life, and it may well be his

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consolation in death, that his country stands pledged, by the faith, which it has plighted to all its citizens, to protect his children from ignorance, barbarism, and vice."

From such sentiments as these, I believe there are none in this community, who would wish to dissent. As to the wisdom and policy of making some publick provision for the general education of the people, there has never been a doubt. But in regard to the extent of these appropriations, there now exists some diversity of opinion. And it is most deeply to be regretted, that those who are most timid and sceptical as to the great utility of such appropriations, seem to be increasing. At least we are left to infer this from the policy, which has been lately adopted, in regard to the schools and other seminaries of learning. Economy is emphatically the order of the day. This is well. Economy is a great political virtue, while it is economy. But when it degenerates into parsimony, and leads to a "pence calculating policy," it is not well. While the publick ap-. propriations are judiciously expended, there is little danger of being liberal to a fault, in the means of diffusing knowledge. And it was most ardently to have been hoped, this was the last expenditure, where a retrechment would have been found necessary. There is certainly no expenditure, from which a government, especially a republican government, realizes so full and ample an equivalent, in the increased aggregate of happiness; and none, by which

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it so effectually provides for its own peace and stability. On some political measures, different classes of the same community have conflicting interests to balance and adjust; but in providing liberally for schools as well as higher seminaries of learning, the interest of all classes perfectly coincides. The rich, upon whom the principal burden of all publick appropriations falls, have their equivalent in the improved condition of society, and the increased security of their property. How would the value of property be impaired, and at how dear a rate would the rich man purchase, or save a few dollars, by suffering an ignorant and naturally jealous populace to grow up around him! a populace equally impatient of the influence and authority, which property naturally confers, and rebellious against the salutary restraints of the laws. What would the splendour of wealth contribute to happiness, if it only put the lives of those surrounded by it, in jeopardy, by placing them between their treasures and the rapacity of the hungry, the destitute, and unprincipled. It is not from this quarter, that we either expect or find opposition to liberal expenditures for education.

The middling and poorer classes find their equivalent, in having their families educated at a small expense to themselves.For these classes of society to refuse ample provisions for publick instruction, is virtually to refuse to have their children educated at other's expense. Yet it is here, oftener than any where, we find a backwardness and indifference upon the subject.