tinies which his Creator has prepared for him, cannot fail to excite the most ardent sensibility of the philosopher and philanthropist. A comparison of the sav age that roams through the forest, with the enlightened inhabitant of a civilized country, would be a brief but impressive representation of the momentous importance of education.

"It were an easy task for the commissioners to show, that in proportion as every country has been enlightened by education, so has been its prosperity. Where the heads and hearts of men are generally cultivated and improved, virtue and wisdom must reign, and vice and ignorance must cease to prevail. Virtue and wisdom are the parents of private and public felicity: vice and ignorance, of private and public misery.

"If education be the cause of the advancement of other nations, it must beapparent to the most superficial observer of our peculiar political institutions, that it is essential, not to our prosperity only, but to the very existence of our government. Whatever may be the effect of education on a despotic or monarchical government, it is not absolutely indispensable to the existence of either. In a despotic government, the people have no agency whatever, either in the formation or in the execution of the laws. They are the mere slaves of arbitrary authority, holding their lives and property at the pleasure of uncontrolled caprice. As the will of the ruler is the supreme law; fear, slavish fear, on the part of the governed, is the principle of despotism. It will be perceived readiÏy, that ignorance on the part of the people can present no barrier to the adminis-tration of such a government; and much less can it endanger its existence. In a monarchical government, the operation of fixed laws is intended to supersede the necessity of intelligence in the people. But in a government like ours, where the people is the sovereign power; where the will of the people is the law of the land; which will is openly and directly expressed; and where every act of the government may justly be called the act of the people; it is absolutely essential that that people be enlightened. They must possess both intelligence and virtue intelligence to perceive what is right, and virtue to do what is right. Our republic, therefore. may justly be said to be founded on the intelligence and virtue of the people. For this reason, it is with much propriety that the enlightened Montesquieu has said, 'in a republic the whole force of education is required.'

"The commissioners think it necessary to represent in a stronger point of view, the importance and absolute necessity of education, as connected either with the cause of religion and morality, or with the prosperity and existence of our political institutions. As the people must receive the advantages of education, the inquiry naturally arises, how this end is to be attained. The expedient devised by the legislature, is the establisment of common schools; which being spread throughout the state and aided by its bounty, will bring improvement within . the reach and power of the humblest citizen. This appears to be the best plan that can be devised to disseminate religion, morality, and learning throughout a whole country. All other methods, heretofore adopted, are partial in their operation and circumscribed in their effects. Academies and universities, understood in contradistinction to common schools, cannot be considered as operating impartially and indiscriminately, as regards the country at large. The advantages of the first are confined to the particular districts in which they are established; and the second, from causes apparent to every one, are devoted almost exclusively to the rich. In a free government, where political equality is estab lished, and where the road to preferment is open to all, there is a natural stimu lus to education; and accordingly we find it generally resorted to, unless some great local impediments interfere. In populous cities, and the parts of the contry thickly settled, schools are generally established by individual exertion. In these cases, the means of education are facilitated, as the expenses of schools are divided among a great many. It is in the remote and thinly populated parts of the state, where the inhabitants are scattered over a large extent, that educa tion stands greatly in need of encouragement. The people here, living far from each other, makes it difficult so to establish schools, as to render them convenient or accessible to all. Every family, therefore, must either educate its own children, or the children must forego the advantages of education.

house is to be built, to build the school house and keep the same in repair, and as the school moneys are devoted exclusively to the payment of the teachers' wages, the sum, however small, which each district will be entitled to, will be from these considerations so much the more efficacious. It will, however, be evident to the Legislature, that the funds appropriated from the State for the support of the common school system, will, alone, be very inadequate. And the commissioners are of opinion that the fund, in any stage of it, even when the residue of the unsold lands shall be converted into money, bearing an interest, never will be, alone, adequate to the maintenance of common schools; as the increase of the population will probably be in as great if not a greater ratio than that of the fund. But it is hardly to be imagined that the Legislature intended that the State should support the whole expense of so great an establishment. The object of the Legislature, as understood by the commissioners, was to rouse the public attention to the important subject of education, and by adopting a system of common schools, in the expense of which the State would largely participate, to bring instruction within the reach and means of the humblest citizen. And the commissioners have kept in view the furtherance of this object of the Legislature; for by requiring each district to raise by tax a sum sufficient to build and repair a school house, and by allotting the school moneys solely to the payment of the teachers' wages, they have in a measure supplied two of the most important sources of expense. Thus every inducement will be held out to the instruction of youth."

"The Legislature will perceive in the system contained in the bills submitted to their consideration, that the commissioners are deeply impressed with the importance of admitting, under the contemplated plan, such teachers only as are duly qualified. The respectability of every school must necessarily depend on the character of the master. To entitle a teacher to assume the control of a school, he should be endowed with the requisite literary qualifications, not only, but with an unimpeachable character. He should also, be a man of patient and mild temperament. A preceptor,' says Rousseau, 'is invested with the rights, and takes upon himself the obligations of both father and mother.' And Quintillion tells us, that to the requisite literary and moral endowments, he must add the benevolent disposition of a parent ch