direction of the Superintendent of common schools and the Regents of the University, who were authorized and required, from time to time, to make all needful rules and regulations; to fix the number and compensation of teachers and others to be employed therein; to prescribe the preliminary examination and the terms and conditions on which the pupils should be received and instructed; to apportion such pupils among the respective counties, conforming as nearly as might be to the ratio of population; and generally, to provide in all things for the good government and management of the school. They were also required to appoint an executive committee, consisting of five persons, one of whom should in all cases be the State Superintendent of common schools, to whom the immediate government and direction of the institution should be committed, subject to such general rules as the Regents might prescribe, and whose duty it should be to make full and detailed reports from time to time to the Superintendent and Regents, and to recommend such rules and regulations as they might deem proper for the school. The Superintendent and Regents were likewise required annually to transmit to the legislature, an account of their proceedings and expenditures.

In pursuance of this act, the Regents of the University, proceeded on the 1st of June thereafter, to the appointment of an Executive Committee, consisting of the Superintendent of common schools (Col. YOUNG) Rev. ALONZO POTTER, Rev. WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL, Hon. GIDEON HAWLEY and FRANCIS DWIGHT, Esq., who held their first meeting on the 20th of June. Having obtained from the corporation of the city of Albany, the lease for five years of a commodious building for the use of the school, they adopted the necessary measures for its organization and establishment, by requesting the Board of Supervisors of the several counties, to appoint on the nomination of the county Superintendents, a number of pupils, corresponding to their respective representation in the Assembly; by the appointment of DAVID P. PAGE, of Newburyport, Mass., as Principal, GEORGE R. PERKINS, of Utica, as Professor of Mathematics, FREDERICK I. ILSLEY, of Albany as teacher of Music, and J. B. HOWARD, of Rensselaer, as teacher of Drawing; and by making such general rules and regulations as they deemed expedient and necessary, in reference to the course of study, management and discipline of the school. On the 18th of December, the school was opened, by a public address from the Superintendent of common schools. Twenty-nine pupils only were in attendence; this number, however, speedily increased to upwards of one hundred; and an experimental or model school was at the commencement of the second term, attached to the institution, comprising upwards of a hundred children of both sexes,

At the opening of the session of the legislature of 1845, Gov. WRIGHT, in his annual message to both Houses, thus adverted to the subject of common school education:

"No public fund of the state is so unpretending, yet so all pervading-so little seen, yet so universally felt-so mild it its exactions, yet so bountiful in its benefits-so little feared or courted, and yet so powerful, as this fund for the support of common schools. The other funds act upon the secular interests of society, its business, its pleasures, its pride, its passions, its vices, its misfortunes. This acts upon its mind and its morals. Education is to free institutions what bread is to human life, the staff of their existence. The office of this fund is to open and warm the soil, and sow the seed from which this element of freedom must grow and ripen into maturity; and the health or sickness of the growth will measure the extent and security of our liberties. The thankfulness we owe to those who have gone before us, for the institution of this fund, for its constitutional protection, and for its safe and prudent administration hitherto, we can best repay by imitating their example and improving upon their work, as the increased means placed in our hands shall give us the ability.

"Few, if any instances, are upon record in which a fund of this description has been administered, and its bounties dispensed through a period of

forty years, with so few suspicions, accusations, or complaints of the interference of either political or religious biases to disturb the equal balance by which its benefits should be extended to our whole population. This should continue as it has been. Our school fund is not instituted to make our children and youth either partizans in politics, or sectarians in religion; but to give them education, intelligence, sound principles, good moral habits, and a free and independent spirit; in short, to make them American freemen and American citizens, and to qualify them to judge and choose for themselves in matters of politics, religion and government. Such an administration of the fund as shall be calculated to render this qualification the most perfect for the mature minds, with the fewest influences tending to bias the judgment or incline the choice, will be the most consonant with our duties, and with the best interests of our constituents. Under such an administration, education will flourish most and the peace and harmony of society be best preserved."

From the annual report of the Superintendent, (Col. YOUNG) it appeared that the whole number of school districts in the state, was 10,990; the whole number of children between the ages of five and sixteen, was 696,548; the number of children of all ages, actually taught in the common schools during the year reported, 709,156, or more than 50,000 beyond the number taught during the preceding year; the amount paid for teachers' wages $992,222; of which $447,566 was raised on rate-bills; the amount paid for library purposes $94,950.54; and the number of volumes in the several district librarries 1,038,396.

"A more just appreciation on the part of the public," observes the Superintendent, in concluding his report, "not only of the importance of adequate intellectual and moral culture in our common schools, but of the responsibilities of teachers, is beginning to prevail. There is much in the prospect thus opened to us, cheering and encouraging to the friends of free institutions, to the friends of education, and of civil, social and moral progress. The great idea of education, in its most comprehensive acceptation, consists in that development, culture and discipline of all the faculties of our nature, which shall fit us for the highest sphere of usefulness, and the highest degree of enjoyment of which that nature, in the circumstances by which we are surrounded, is susceptible.

This conception of that preliminary training which is to give us the complete and efficient control of the energies, physical and moral, of our common humanity, has at length, it is to be hoped, assumed its place as the foundation of the science of elementary instruction. Institutions for the preparation of teachers upon the most approved models, are already diffusing far and wide, a more enlightened and practical system of mental culture, by furnishing to the schools instructors of a high grade of qualifications, intellectual and moral; and these instructors, in their turn, communicate elements of knowledge and the means of self-improvement, to the pupils committed to their charge. The general substitution of knowledge for the parrot-like rote, by which a vigorous and retentive memory was made the principal test of mental capacity, may be regarded as one of the strongest indications of the prevalence of sounder principles, and of a progressive revolution in the theory and practice of education.

"These are the principal agencies through whose united influence our common schools have imbibed that spirit of improvement which is perceptible in nearly every section of the state, and which must ultimately renovate our entire system of public education, and exert a beneficial influence upon all our institutions, civil, social and political. In the late strongly contested election for the chief magistrate of the United States, the result was determined for good or for evil, by 237,600 votes cast in this state; and the result will, doubtless, eventuate in a course of measures which will affect, beneficially or otherwise, the interests of some twenty millions of human beings, for a series of years to come. The whole number of children now under the course of instruction in the common schools of this state, exceeds

700,000; estimating one-half of this number as females, and making a still farther deduction of 100,000, or one-seventh of the whole, for removal from the state, death, or inability from any other cause, to discharge the duties appertaining to the citizen-and we have remaining 250,000, who, upon a reasonable estimate will, within a less period than fifteen years, emerge from our common schools invested with all the functions of popular sovereignty; a number exceeding by upwards of 12,000 that which has recently given to the Union a Chief Magistrate.

"On the flourishing condition of our schools repose the hopes of the present and the destinies of the future. Without a sound, moral and intellectual education, the functions of self government can neither be duly appreciated nor successfully maintained, The constitution of several of the South American Republics appeared theoretically to secure human liberty. But paper provisions are powerless unless they are also impressed on the hearts, and combined with the intelligence of the people. Without an accurate knowlede of their rights and duties, and a determination to maintain them, no community can long be free; and the melancholy truth that the South American Republics have fallen into revolutionary decrepitude, and degenerated into military despotisms, affords to us an impressive admonition. Indeed without going beyond our own borders, premonitious of an anti-social spirit-of insubordination to the law-of combining to perpetrate violence, riot, incendiarism and murder-are sufficiently alarming in their rapid increase during the last few years. If the same spirit pervaded the majority of the community, the existing government would be at an end; and as human society cannot exist without a superintending power of protection, the aid of some more energetic and despotic form of government would necessarily be invoked to administer justice, to maintain order, and to shield the poor from the exactions of the rich,-the weak from the aggressions of the strong.

"The great extent of the American Republic-its rapidly increasing population the diversity of habits, pursuits, productions, and interests, some of which are regarded as hostile to others-render necessary at all times, the cultivation of a liberal spirit of forbearance and conciliation. Without the diffusion of education, such a spirit, in sufficient strength to maintain harmony, cannot exist. It may be safely affirmed, that there is now no people of equal numbers on the face of the earth, who, if placed uuder such institutions as ours, would maintain the government for a single year. And unless moral and intellectual culture, shall at least keep pace with the increase of numbers, this republic will assuredly fall. On the careful cultivation in our schools, of the minds of the young, the entire success or the absolute failure of the great experiment of self government is wholly dependent; and unless that cultivation is increased, and made more effective than it has yet been, the conviction is solemnly impressed by the signs of the times, that the American Union, now the asylum of the oppressed and "the home of the free," will ere long share the melancholy fate of every former attempt of self government. That Union is and must be sustained by the moral and intellectual powers of the community, and every other power is wholly ineffectual. Physical force may generate hatred, fear and repulsion; but can never produce Union. The only salvation for the republic is to be sought for in our schools. It is here that the seeds of liberty are sown, and made to germinate and grow, and produce rich fruit in abundance. Every improvement that can be given to these primary institutions, affords an additional guaranty for the permanent maintenance of rational freedom.

The duration of the life of man should be estimated, not by the years of his physical existence, which would degrade him to the level of the brute-but by the period of the expansion and enjoyment of his moral and intellectual faculties. Thence it has been affirmed with philosophic truth, that "he who shortens the road to human knowledge lengthens life." The cradle and the grave are in such close proximity, even when the interval is

most extended, that human existence may be regarded as nearly a blank, unless the early portion of the brief space by which they are separated is seduously devoted to the developement of the mind. The undying part of our nature has been impressed by its creator with an unconquerable desire for knowledge, not that limited acquaintance with the external forms of things which is bestowed upon the animals by instinct-but a knowledge vastly more minute and exclusive, which embraces within its scope, all the properties and laws, both of mind and matter. The earth itself with all its appendages, is much too small a theatre, to satiate the inquisitiveness, even of children; and if human power were commensurate with human aspirations, the daring ken of man would be thrown through the abyss of Heaven, to the ultima thùle of the works of God-to the farthest verge in fathomless space, in which the energies of creative power have yet been consummated-to regions where the embryon nebulae of unformed worlds are in the transition or the quiescent state, obedient to the primeval fiat of the Almighty."

The introduction of Teachers' Institutes as an elementary portion of the system of Public Instruction, which was effected at about this period, constitutes an important feature in the progress of improvement, with reference to the practical qualification of teachers of common schools. The subject was first brought to the attention of the friends of education, by a series of resolutions submitted to the Tompkins County Teachers' Association, in October 1842, by J. S. DENMAN, the County Superintendent of Tompkins, setting forth the necessity of united and efficient action on the part of teachers to elevate their profession and the standard of common school education generally, and recommending the establishment, in that County of a Teachers' Institute, where all the teachers might meet semi-annually in the spring and fall, preparatory to the commencement of the respective summer and winter terms: and spend from two to four weeks, in receiving instruction from efficient instructors, in listening to lectures from scientific men, and in the discussion of plans for the improvement of schools. The first Teachers' Institute was opened at Ithaca, on the 4th day of April 1843, under the management and direction of Mr. Denman, who had engaged the services of Salem Town Esq., the Rev. David Powell and Prof. James Thompson, of Auburn, as instructors and lecturers. Twenty eight teachers were in attendance, and instruction was given daily for a term of two weeks in the best mode of Governing and teaching common schools, including a critical analysis and review of the various elementary branches; and sundry advanced branches not heretofore in use in the Schools generally. During the Autumn of the same year, several similar institutions were opened in different sections of the State; and in the succeeding year their operations were greatly enlarged and extended. In his annual report for 1845 the State Superintendent thus alludes to them:

"In no less than seventeen of the largest counties, Teachers' Institutes have been established during the past two years, in which upwards of one thousand teachers have been instructed during periods varying from two to six or eight weeks, immediately preceding the commencement of their respective terms of instruction, by the most competent and experienced educators whose services could be procured, in conjunction with the county Superintendent. These associations are wholly voluntary, and the expenses, including board, tuition, and the use of convenient rooms, apparatus, &c., have hitherto been defrayed exclusively by the teachers. The course of instruction consists generally of a critical and thorough review of all the elementary branches required to be taught in the common schools, full expositions and illustrations of the most approved methods of communicating knowledge to the young, and of the proper government and discipline of schools, and a mutual interchange of views and opinions among the teachers, instructors and Superintendent. Among the numerous improvements which the experience of past imperfections has introduced into the practical operation of our common schools, there is none which combines so much utility

and value as these local and temporary institutions; and in the judgment of the Superintendent they are highly deserving of legislative aid. A concise exposition of their general features, the mode of instruction adopted, and its effects not only upon the teachers, but upon the whole character of the schools under their charge, and upon the public sentiment generally, has, it is understood, been prepared by Mr. SALEM TOWN, of Cayuga, a veteran teacher, who has himself most ably and efficiently contributed to the establishment and success of this species of instruction."

In reviewing the administration of the common school system, by Col. YOUNG, it is impossible not to perceive the vast impulse which was given to all its varied operations by the efficiency, energy and public spirit of that distinguished statesman. Bringing to the discharge of the peculiar duties of the office of Superintendent no previous experience, and strong prejudices against some of the most cherished features of the system of public instruction, he not only speedily rendered himself familiar with all its details, but divesting himself of all these unfavorable pre-conceptions which had obtained possession of his mind, dispassionately surveyed the entire bearings of the whole system, and having convinced himself of its value and utility, devoted his best energies and all his powerful influence to its advancement and improvement. The plan of county and town supervision, the Normal school and Teachers' Institutes, and District Libraries, were cherished and strengthened by his exertions; and the impress of his vigorous mind and strong understanding will long remain upon the common school system of our State.

Upon his retirement from the office of Secretary of state, Col. YOUNG received from the Regents of the University, the appointment of member of the Executive Committee of the Normal School, in the place of Dr. POTTER, who had been elected Bishop of the diocese of Pennsylvania and had removed to that State. HARMANUS BLEEKER, Esq., of the city of Albany was also appointed a member of the Executive Committee to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of FRANCIS DWIGHT, Esq., which took place on the 18th of December, 1845.

The removal from the State of Dr. POTTER, and the death of Mr. DWIGHT in the fulness of his faculties and the apparent meridian of his usefulness, were deeply and extensively felt by the friends of common school education. In all the measures which had been canvassed and adopted for the improvement and elevation of our systems of public instruction, both these gentlemen had borne a conspicious and an efficient part; and to their constant and uniform co-operation with the legislature and the executive authorities of the state charged with the general supervision of these great interests, the success of those measures is to a very considerable extent due. As the conductor of the District School Journal, as County Superintendent and member of the Board of Education of the city of Albany, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the State Normal School, Mr. DWIGHT essentially contributed to the advancement of popular education, and to the general diffusion of sound principles of elementary instruction throughout the state.

Administration of NATHANIEL S. BENTON-Failure of the effort to ingraft the Free School System on the Constitution—Abolition of the office of County Superintendent.

On the 3d day of February, 1845, the Hon. NATHANIEL S. BENTON, of Her kimer, was appointed by joint ballot of both Houses of the Legislature, Sec retary of State and Superintendent of Common Schools and entered upon the discharge of his duties on the 6th of the same month.

From his first annual report, bearing date on the 15th of January, 1846, it appeared that the whole number of school districts in the state, on the first day of July preceding, was 11,018; the number of children between the ages of five and sixteen, residing in the state, on the first day of January, 1845, 690,914; the whole number of children of all ages, taught in the