of his neighborhood. A subscription was set on foot; and it appears that about five thousand pounds sterling were contributed to promote the undertaking. The academy, founded about the year 1749, became the celebrated University of Pennsylvania. Franklin, writing to the first president of King's College, now Columbia, thus expressed himself: "I think, with you, that nothing is more important to the public weal than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of the State, much more so than riches and arms, which, under the management of ignorance and wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of the people; and though the culture bestowed upon many should be successful with few, yet the influence of these few, and the service in their power, may be very great.'

" 1

Although in Virginia, after the Revolution, a knowledge of letters was far from being as general as it was in some other States, yet it appears from a letter of Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell that "the mass of education in Virginia before the Revolution placed her with the foremost of her sister

1 In the midst of the war for independence, Dr. Franklin, as plenipotentiary of the United States in France, forbade American privateers to molest the squadron with which the British discoverer, Capt. Cook, was circumnavigating the globe. France, in the interest of science, is said to have laid a similar interdict upon her cruisers. In acknowledgment of Franklin's magnanimity, the British admiralty sent him, as from the king, a presentation-copy of Cook's Voyages and a gold medal. Cook, who made a number of voyages of discovery, will be remembered as the navigator who virtually gave England Australia and various possessions in the South Seas.

colonists." In 1796 Virginia enacted its first general school law. A part of the preamble reads thus: "Whereas it appeareth that the great advantages which civilized nations enjoy beyond the savage and barbarous nations of the world are principally derived from the invention and use of letters," &c.

As early as 1723 the people of Maryland had started schools in all the counties of their colony. For the support of these schools, State aid was given in money, and lands were appropriated in each county. South Carolina had been settled by a noble class of colonists. As early as 1700 the government of the colony assumed the management of libraries situated in different parts of the colony. It is said, however, that the schools did not receive enough money from the Assembly to support them, unassisted from private sources; and, in conséquence, many of the youth went to Europe to receive instruction. In 1776 the people of North Carolina embraced in their constitution a clause making it the duty of the legislature to establish a school or schools for the convenient instruction of youth, &c. The people of Georgia, in the troubled days of 1777, when the war of the Revolution was in progress, provided, in the fifty-fourth article of their constitution, that every county should establish and keep up a school at the public expense. In 1785 the people of Georgia provided for a university. In doing so, the legislature seemed to think, that, in an unobjectionable manner, they were aiding the cause of religion. The enactment regarding a uni

versity reads thus: "And whereas the encouragement of religion and learning is an object of great importance to the prosperity, happiness, and advantage of the same" [the State], "be it therefore enacted," &c. At the first meeting of the legislature of New York, after the adoption of its constitution, Gov. George Clinton thus addressed the body: "Neglect of education of youth is one of the evils consequent upon war. Perhaps there is scarce any thing more worthy your attention than the revival and encouragement of seminaries of learning, and nothing by which we can more satisfactorily express our gratitude to the Supreme Being for his past favors, since piety and virtue are generally the offspring of an enlightened understanding." The very distinguished John Jay, who rendered his country remarkably great service during the Revolution; who was the first chief justice of the UnitedStates Supreme Court; who, as minister to England, represented the United States in the grave boundary difficulties regarding the English possessions in America; the statesman who deserves imperishable fame for having exerted himself more successfully than, perhaps, any other man against the existence of slavery in New York, - when elected governor of New York, did not fail to draw the attention of the legislature to the cause of education. He thus addressed that body in the year 1800: "Among other objects which will present themselves to you is one which I earnestly recommend to your patronage: I mean our institutions for the education of

youth. The importance of common schools is best estimated in the good effects of them where they most abound and are best regulated." The members of the legislature, by enactments, showed their appreciation of public schools and libraries to the State.

As

On May 20, 1785, the Continental Congress, in the "Ordinance disposing of Lands in Western Territory," decreed, that "there shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within the said township." though this grant-so large that a European cannot perhaps comprehend its magnitude, being onesixteenth of the entire territory had not been sufficient to impress upon posterity the earnestness with which the great American statesmen of the last century strove to diffuse a universal knowledge of letters, the Continental Congress, on July 13, 1787, when providing for the government of the territory north-west of the Ohio, — anticipating that new and populous States would, in time, be formed in the vast domain, unanimously adopted a bill in which occur these words: "And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish these principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments which forever after shall be formed in the said territory; . . . religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, — schools and the means of

It may

education shall be forever encouraged." here be noticed, that in a deed drawn up July 23, 1787, selling seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land to the Ohio Company, Congress stipulated that not only should one-sixteenth of the tract be appropriated for school-purposes, but that there should also be set apart two complete townships for the establishment of a university, in what was, at the time, a wilderness.

In January, 1790, the first Congress of the United States began its second session in the city of New York. George Washington, in the senate-chamber, delivered his speech to both houses of Congress. The largest division of his address was devoted to urging upon Congress the value of knowledge to citizens of a republic. He thus commenced this part of his speech: "Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing that can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours, it is proportionally essential. To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways," &c. Washington, continuing with lofty eloquence, enumerates different reasons why a knowledge of letters is valuable to citizens of a republic. He then ended with the earnest and dignified words: "Whether this desirable object" [the advancement of learning] "will be best