education, and at the same time remove all just cause of complaint as to the inequality of taxation. District taxation has been found to be unjust, unequal and oppressive. It should therefore at once be abandoned, so far as the ordinary support of the schools is concerned. The funds necessary for payment of teachers' wages, in addition to the amount received from the State Treasury, should be provided either by a State tax equitably levied on real and personal property according to a fixed and uniform valuation, by a county and town tax, levied and assessed in the same manner, or by such a combination of these three modes as might be deemed most expe dient and judicious.

"The common schools of the State should be declared free to every resident of the respective districts, of the proper age to participate in their benefits; and their support should be made a charge upon the whole property, either of the state at large, or of the respective counties and towns in which they are situated.

"The bill which passed the Assembly at its last session, provided for the levying of an annual tax of $800,000 on the real and personal property of the state according to the assessed valuation of such property, and for the distribution of the aggregate amount so to be raised, among the several counties and towns of the state, according to the number of children, of proper school age, residing in each. This sum, together with the amount annually apportioned from the revenue of the common school fund, would, it was supposed, be sufficient for the support of the several schools of the state,during an average period of eight months in each year. The whole amount expended for teachers' wages, during the year 1849, was $1,322,696 24, to which is to be added an aggregate amount of $110,000 for library purposes, making in the whole $1,432,696 24. The superintendent, however, entertains no doubt that the amount proposed to be raised by the bill referred to, in conjunction with the State appropriation, the revenue for which is rapidly and steadily increasing, will be amply adequate to the payment of teachers' wages for the average length of time during which the schools have heretofore been taught, and to the annual and adequate replenishment of the libraries and necessary apparatus in the schools.

"Under the present defectively administered system of assessment, however, such a tax will operate very unequally in different sections of the State. The standard of valuation, both of real and personal property, varies, as is well known, in nearly every county of the State; while in some it is estimated at its fair and market value, in others it is assessed at threefourths, two-thirds and sometimes as low as one-half its actual value. If, therefore the existing standard of valuation is to be made the basis of the apportionment of the proposed tax, it is manifest that a very unjust and oppressive burden will be cast upon those counties where the assessment is in strict accordance with the provisions of law, for the benefit of those sections in which its requirements are evaded by an arbitrary standard of valuation.

"The distribution of money when raised, serves likewise to render this disproportion still more manifest, that being based upon the population a☛cording to the last preceding census of the respective counties."

"Should the legislature deem it expedient to charge the annual support of the schools, over and above the revenue of the school fund, upon the taxable property of the State, and to retain the existing mode of distribution, the necessity of devising some mode by which the standard of valua tion should be as nearly as practicable uniform thoughout the state, will be apparent. If this can be accomplished, or if the distribution of the funds raised were directed to be made upon the same basis with the apportionment of the tax, there can be no doubt,in the judgment of the Superintendent, that a state tax for the support of our common schools will prove the simplest, most efficient and beneficial mode of providing for the object in view: the establishment and maintenance of a system of free school educa tion, in accordance with the expressed wishes of the inhabitants of the Stata.

"If. however, this were found impracticable, the same result may be obtained by requiring the board of supervisors of each county of the State to raise twice the amount apportioned to the county, as a county tax, and levy an equal amount as a town tax, in the mode prescribed by the existing law, which requires only an equal amount to be levied as a county and town tax respectively. This provision would simply increase the amount of school money now by law required to be raised, one third, while it would entirely dispense with district taxation, for the current support of the schools. Inequalities in the standard of valuation adopted by the respective counties, would in this case prove unjust and burdensome to none; as the existing law has made complete provision for the adjustment of such inequalities in the case of joint districts formed from parts of two or more counties or towns. The whole amount of taxable property of each county would contribute in equal and fair proportions to the support of the schools located in its territory; and the angry dissensions growing out of the necessity of district taxation, the fruitful source of nearly all the opposition which has been made to the existing law, would be averted.

"In apportioning the public money, and the money raised by a county or State tax among the several school districts, the Superintendent is of opinion that some more effectual provision than now exists, should be made for the smaller and weaker districts, upon whom the burden of supporting a school for any considerable length of time during the year, is peculiarly oppressive. If a specified amount, say for instance fifty dollars, were required to be apportioned to every duly organized district whose report for the preceding year shall be found in accordance with law, leaving the balance to be apportioned according to the number of children between the ages of four and twenty-one years residing in the district the necessary encouragement would be afforded to every district, however limited its means, or however sparse its population, while ample resources would be left for larger and more populous districts. The several districts being thus furnished with adequate funds for the maintenance of efficient schools during an average period of eight months in each year, the trustees should be peremp torily required to expend the moneys thus placed at their disposal, in the employment of suitably qualified teachers for such a length of time as those means may justify.

"Such an arrangement would, it is believed, prove almost universally acceptable to the people of the State. The principle involved has repeatedly received the sanction of public sentiment. It is in accordance with the enlightened spirit of the age. It is the only system compatible with the genius and spirit of our republican institutions. It is not a novelty, now for the first time sought to be engrafted upon our legislation, but a principle recognized and carried into practical operation in our sister State of Massachusetts from the earliest period of its colonial history-indentified with her greatness and prosperity, her influence and her wealth, and transplanted from her soil to that of some of the younger States of the Union. "In each of our own cities, and in many of our larger villages, it has been established and successfully sustained by the general approval of their citizens, and wherever it has obtained a foothold it has never been abandoned. It is only requisite to adjust the details of the system equitably and fairly, to commend it to the approbation of every good citizen as the noblest palladium and most effectual support of our free institutions.

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The existing law has excited a degree of opposition which was not anticipated, but it is believed that it has grown out of the defects of the law, rather than from any prevailing hostility to the principle of free schools. No law can be successfully and prosperously administered under our government, which does not receive the general approval of the people. It is the earnest desire, therefore, of the Superintendent, that the present law should be so amended as to produce greater equality-to remove all reasonable ground of complaint, and to render our great system of education more efficient and useful.

"The idea of universal education is the grand central idea of the age. Upon this broad and comprehensive basis, all the experience of the past, all the crowding phenomena of the present, and all our hopes and aspirations for the future, must rest. Our forefathers have transmitted to us a noble inheritance of national, intellectual, moral and religious freedom. They have confided our destiny as a people to our own hands. Upon our individual and combined intelligence, virtue and patriotism, rests the solution of the great problem of self-government. We should be untrue to ourselves, untrue to the cause of liberty, of civilization and humanity, if we neglected the assiduous cultivation of those means, by which alone we can secure the realization of the hopes we have excited. Those means are the universal education of our future citizens, without discrimination or distinction. Wherever in our midst a human being exists, with capacities and faculties to be developed, improved, cultivated and directed, the avenues of knowledge should be freely opened, and every facility afforded to their unrestrict ed entrance. Ignorance should no more be countenanced than vice and crime. The one leads almost inevitably to the other. Banish ignorance, and in its stead introduce intelligence, science, knowledge and increasing wisdom and enlightenment, and you remove, in most cases, all those incentives to idleness, vice and crime, which now produce such a frightful harvest of retribution, misery and wretchedness. Educate every child, to the top of his faculties,' and you not only secure the community against the depredations of the ignorant and the criminal, but you bestow upon it, instead, productive artisans, good citizens, upright jurors and magistrates, enlightened statesmen, scientific discoverers and inventors, and the dispensers of a pervading influence in favor of honesty, virtue and true goodness. Educate every child physically, morally and intellectually, from the age of four to twenty-one, and many of your prisons, penitentiaries and alms-houses will be converted into schools of industry and temples of science, and the immense amount now contributed for their maintenance and support will be diverted into far more profitable channels. Educate every child— not superficially-not partially-but thoroughly-develope equally and healthfully every faculty of his nature-every capability of his being-and you infuse a new and invigorating element into the very life blood of civilization-an element which will diffuse itself throughout every vein and artery of the social and political system, purifying, strengthening and regenerating all its impulses, elevating its aspirations, and clothing it with a power equal to every demand upon its vast energies and resources.

"These are some of the results which must follow in the train of a wisely matured and judiciously organized system of universal education. They are not imaginary, but sober inductions from well authenticated facts-deliberate conclusions from established principles, sanctioned by the concurrent testimony of experienced educators and eminent statesmen and philanthropists. If nanies are needed to enforce the lesson they teach, those of Washington, and Franklin, and Hamilton, and Jefferson and Clinton, with a long array of patriots and statesmen, may be cited. If facts are required to illustrate the connection between ignorance and crime, let the official return of convictions in the several courts of the State for the last ten years be examined, and their instructive lessons be heeded. Out of nearly 28,000 persons convicted of crime, but 12 had enjoyed the benefits of a good common school education; 414 only had what the returning officers characterize as a 'tolerable' share of learning; and of the residue, about one-half only could either read or write. Let similar statistics be gathered from the wretched innates of our poor house establishments, and similar results would undoubtedly be developed. Is it not, therefore, incomparably better, as a mere prudential question of political economy, to provide ample means or the education of the whole community, and to bring those means within the reach of every child, than to impose a much larger tax for the protection c1 that community against the depredations of the ignorant, the idle and the vicious, and for the support of the imbecile, the thoughtless and intemperate !

Every consideration connected with the present and future welfare of the community-every dictate of an enlightened humanity-every impulse of an enlarged and comprehensive spirit of philanthropy, combine in favor of this great principle. Public sentiment has declared in its favor. The new States which, within the past few years, have been added to the Confederacy, have adopted it as the basis of their system of public instruction; and the older States, as one by one they are reconstructing their fundamental laws and constitutions, are engrafting the same principle upon their institutions. Shall New York, in this noble enterprise of education, retrace her steps Shall she disappoint the high hopes and expectations she has excited, by receding from the advanced position she now occupies in the van of educational improvement? Her past career, in all those elements which go to make up the essential wealth and greatness of a people, has been one of progress and uninterrupted expansion. Her far-seeing legislators and statesmen, uninfluenced by the skepticism of the timid, the ignorant and the faithless, and unawed by the denunciations of the hostile, prosecuted that great work of internal improvement which will forever illustrate the pride and glory of her political history. The rich results of the experiment thus boldly ventured upon have vindicated their wisdom. Is the development of the intellectual and moral resources of her millions of future citizens an object of less interest, demanding a less devoted consecration of the energies of her people, and worthy of a less firm and uncompromising perseverance?

Disregarding the feelings of the present hour, and looking only to the future, will the consciousness of having laid the foundation for the universal education of our people be a less pleasing subject of contemplation than that of having aided in replenishing the coffers of their wealth?

"In conclusion, the Superintendent cannot feel that he has fully met the responsibility devolved upon him by his official relations to the schools of the tate, were he to fail in again urging upon the Legislature the definite adoption of this beneficent measure. Let its details be so adjusted as to bear equally upon all, oppressively upon none. Let every discordant element of strife and passion be removed from the councils of the districts, let the necessary assessment for the great object in view be diffused over the vast aggregate of the wealth and property of the State. Then let teachers, worthy of the name, teachers intellectually and morally qualified for the discharge of their high and responsible duties, dispense the benefits and riches of education, equally and impartially, to the eight hundred thousand children who annually congregate within the district school room.

"The children of the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the native and the foreigner, will then participate alike in the inexhaustible treasures of intellect, they will commence their career upon a footing of equality, under the fostering guardianship of the State, and will gradually ripen into enlightened and useful citizens, prepared for all the varied duties of life, and for the full enjoyment of all the blessings incident to humanity."

Numerous petitions were forwarded to the legislature from different sections of the state, for the repeal or amendment of the act of 1849. On the 6th day of February, Mr. T. H. BENEDICT, of Westchester, from the majority of the Assembly committee on colleges, academies and common schools, presented an elaborate and able report, accompanied by a bill “to establish Free Schools throughout the State." This bill declared common schools free to every child between the ages of five and twenty-one years; directed the levying of an annual state tax of $500,000 for their support, in addition to the funds already provided by the constitution; and provided for any balance that might be necessary for the payment of teachers' wages by a poll tax to be levied by the trustees on the inhabitants of the respective districts. Mr. BURROUGHS, of Orleans from the minority of the committee, reported a bill entitled An act in relation to Common Schools," directing the sum of $800,000 to be annually levied by a state tax, one-fourth of the avails of which together with one-fourth of all other monies applicable

to the support of common schools was directed to be equally divided among the several school districts, and the residue to be apportioned according to the number of children residing in each between the ages of five and twentyone; and any balance requisite to be raised by rate bill.

After a protracted discussion of several weeks the bill entitled "AN ACT TO ESTABLISH FREE SCHOOLS THROUGHOUT THE STATE," was passed by a vote of 72 to 21. By this act the several common schools of the state was declared free to all persons residing in the several districts over five and under twenty-one years of age, as thereinafter provided; an annual state tax of $800,000 was directed to be levied for their support, one-third of which and of all other monies applicahle to the support of common schools, was directed to be equally divided among the several districts, and the residue to be apportioned according to the number of children between the ages of five and twenty-one; and any balance required for the payment of teachers' wages, to be provided for by a rate-bill, exempting all indigent persons. All property exempt by law from levy and sale on execution was declared to be exempt from the operation of the collectors warrant, on such rate bills. On the 10th of April, this bill passed the Senate without amendment, by a vote of 22 to 4, and on the 12th of April, was signed by the Governor and became a law.

Among those who by their exertions and influence, contributed materially to the final establishment and recognition of the Free School principle, and its incorporation as a fundamental portion of our Common School System, we may be permitted without disparagement to others less prominently connected with this important movement, to enumerate Governors SEWARD and HUNT, Superintendents YOUNG, BENTON and MORGAN, JAMES W. BEEKMAN, HORACE GREELEY and HENRY J. RAYMOND of New York; THOMAS LEGGETT, Jr. of Queens; Hon. FRANKLIN TUTHILL of Suffolk, A. W. LEGGETT, CALEB ROSCOE and THEODORE H. BENEDICT of Westchester: ALEXANDER G. JOHNSON, HENRY B. HASWELL, JOHN (). COLE, FRANKLIN TOWNSEND, JOHN V. L PRUYN, BRADFORD R. WOOD, Rev. HENRY MANDEVILLE, FRIEND HUMPHREY, J. N. T. TUCKER, J. W. BULKLEY and WILLIAM F. PHELPS of Albany, Gen. JOHN E. WOOL, Prof. BAERMAN and GEORGE M. TIBBITTS of Rensselaer; JOHN BOWDISH of Montgomery: HALSEY R WING of Warren; WILLIAM L CRANDALL, editor of the Free School larion; HARVEY BALDWIN, CHARLES B. SEDGWICK, Rev. SAMUEL J. MAY, E. W. CURTIS, BENJAMIN COWLES, and the members of the Teachers Association of Onondaga; O. B. PIERCE, of Oneida; Dr. JOHN MILLER, SAMUEL B. WOOLWORTH and LEWI KINGSLEY of Cortland; ALANSON HOLLEY of Wyoming; Gen. W. S. HUBBELL and DAVID MCMASTER of Steuben; CALEB LYON of Lewis; Dr. H. D. DIDAMA of Seneca; SALEM TOWN of Cayuga; JABEZ D. HAMMOND of Otsego; President Norr of Union College; O. G. STEELE and Messrs STARR & RICE of Erie ; SILAS M. BUROUGHS of Orleans; O. ARCHER of Wayne and CHARLES R. COBURN of Tioga. There were numerous other active and influential friends of education, in different sections of the state, whose services and exertions in behalf of this great measure, are none the less appreciated, although the limited space at our disposal does not permit us to give their names in this connection.

GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE SYSTEM.

The entire territory of the state, comprising, exclusively of the waters of the great lakes, an area of 45,658 square miles has been subdivided into about eleven thousand and four hundred school districts, averaging somewhat more than four square miles each-seldom, in the rural districts, varying materially from this average-and bringing the remotest inhabitants of the respective districts within a little more than one mile of the school house.

Common schools in the several districts of the state are free to all residents of the districts between the ages of four and twenty-one years, and nonresidents of the district may be admitted into the school of any district with the written consent of the trustees.