tracks, for the purpose of extending themselves with greater facility and promptitude, over the remaining districts of the Vice-royalty, situated in the road of Popayan, Cuença, and Quito, as far as Lima. In the August following they reached Guayaquil. The result of this expedition has been, not merely to spread the Vaccine among all people, whether friends or enemies; among Moors; among Visayans, and among Chinese; but also to secure to posterity, in the dominions of his Majesty, the perpetuity of so great a benefit, partly by means of the central committees that have been established, as well as by the discovery which Dr. Balmis made of an indigenous matter in the cows of the valley of Atlixco, near the city of Puebla de los Angeles; in the neighbourhood of that of Valladolid de Mechoacan, where the Adjutant Antonio Gutierrez found it; and in the district of Calabozo, in the province of Caracas, where Don Carlos de Pozo, Physician of the residence, found it. A multitude of observations, which will be published without delay, respecting the developement of the Vaccine in various climes, and respecting its efficacy, not merely in preventing the natural Small-pox, but in curing simultaneously other morbid affections of the human frame, will manifest how important to humanity will prove the consequences of an expedition, which has no parallel in history. No. XIX. SCOTCH LAWS RELATING TO EDUCATION. AT a time when the public attention is directed to the education of the poor, it will be useful to ascertain what have been the measures, which have so effectually given to Scotland those advantages of moral and religious discipline, from which many of the other parts of the Island continue to be excluded. In a former volume we inserted a copy of the short and effectual law, which secured the benefits of education to all the inhabitants of Massachusets Bay. We now add copies of those Scotch laws, which, in a very few years, brought many thousands of dissolute and noxious poor into a state of civil order, and made Scotland one of the examples of the inestimable benefits which a system of national instruction for the poor, confers on morality and good government. These Acts will shew how simple and unembarrassed the measures might be, that would give the English poor and the community these important advantages. The inducing the effectual co-operation of the endowments and establishments for the instruction of the poor already existing in this country, seems to be almost the only object, which requires previous inquiry and investigation. Act of Privy Council, 10th Dec. 1616. FORASMUCH as the KING'S MAJESTY having a special care and regard that the true religion be advanced and established in all the parts of this kingdom, and that all his Majesty's subjects, especially the youth, be exercised and trained up in civility, godliness, knowlege, and learning; that the vulgar English tongue be universally planted, and the Irish language, which is one of the chief, and principal causes of the continuance of barbarity and incivility amongst the inhabitants of the Isles and Highlands, may be abolished and removed. And whereas there is no means more powerful to further this his Majesty's princely regard and purpose, than the establishing of schools in the particular parishes of his kingdom, where the youth may be taught at the least to write and to read, and be catechised and instructed in the grounds of religion: therefore the King's Majesty, with advice of the lords of his secret council, has thought it necessary and expedient, in every parish of this kingdom where convenient means may be had for entertaining a school, that a school shall be established, and a fit person appointed to teach the same, upon the expense of the parishioners, according to the quantity and quality of the parish, at the sight and by the advice of the Bishop of the diocese in his visitation: commanding hereby all the bishops within this kingdom, that they and every one of them, within their several dioceses, deal and travel with the parishioners of the particular parishes within their said dioceses, to condescend and agree upon some certain, solid, and sure course, how, and by what means the said schools may be entertained: and if any difficulty shall arise amongst them concerning this matter, that the said bishop report the same to the said lords, to the effect they There is a Scotch act of 1494, for promoting the education of the higher classes, and another of 1579, for instruction of youth in the art of musick. These I omit, as not ap plying to the subject of the education of the poor. |