generally to two thirds of the entire expenditure of the federal government. The state government has, nevertheless, sustained the expenses of its own administration, and founded and endowed, not only a broad system of education, but also charitable institutions for every class of the unfortunate, and a penitentiary establishment which is adopted as a model by civilized nations. The state has increased four-fold the wealth of its citizens, and relieved them from direct taxation; and in addition to all this has carried forward a stupendous enterprise of improvement, all the while diminishing its debt, magnifying its credit, and augmenting its

resources.

This cheering view of our condition ought to encourage neither prodigality of expenditure nor legislation of doubtful expediency. All appropriations for purposes of internal improvement ought to be made with a view and constant purpose to call into co-operation individual capital and enterprise. Rigid economy ought to be enforced, and perfect accountability exacted, in this as in every other department of the public service. But action is the condition of our existence. Our form of government chastens military ambition. The action of the people must be directed to pursuits consistent with public order and conducive to the general welfare. Otherwise our country will be rent by civil commotions, or our citizens will seek other regions, where society is less tranquil, and where ambition enjoys greater freedom, enterprise higher motives, and labor richer rewards.

We are required to carry forward the policy of internal improvements, by the abounding experience of its benefits already enjoyed; by its incalculable benefits yet to be realized, and by all our obligations to promote the happiness of the people, to multiply and raise their social enjoyments, to maintain the fame of the state, inestimably dear to its citizens, and to preserve the integrity of the Union, and by the paramount duty we owe to mankind, to illustrate the peacefulness, the efficiency, the beneficence, and the wisdom of republican institutions.

Nevertheless that legislation is unwise, which is exclusively devoted to enterprises of great moment, and overlooks measures of obvious but common utility. The present condition of our highways has resulted from the necessity of constructing roads over an extended surface, with the scanty means and efforts of a sparse population. But this inconvenience has in a great meas

ure ceased to exist. The labor expended upon our highways is a grievous tax, and yet our roads are scarcely improved. Their summer repairs effect little more than restoring them to the condition they maintained before the injuries of the winter season occurred. The evil lies in a misapplication of the labor assessed. Your experience in regard to this subject is sufficient to convince you of the necessity of reform, as well as to suggest the most effectual measures for its accomplishment.

It affords me pleasure to state, in reference to all our collegiate institutions, that their usefulness has been increased, and their prospects are more auspicious than heretofore.

There are one hundred and forty-six incorporated academies, seventy-nine of which are subject to the visitation of the regents of the University, and participate in the distribution of the literature fund. The act of 1837 renders admission to these advantages so easy, that it is probable all will soon be placed on the same basis. The number of students in the academies subject to visitation is about ten thousand, and the number in all the academies in the state is estimated to exceed fifteen thousand. The sum to be annually distributed hereafter is $40,000, being in addition to $28,000, the previous annual appropriation.

There are ten thousand five hundred and eighty-three organized common-school districts in the state, of which nine thousand eight hundred and thirty have maintained schools during an average period of eight months within the last year. The number of children between the ages of five and sixteen in the school-districts, is five hundred and thirty-nine thousand seven hundred and forty-seven, of whom five hundred and twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and thirteen received instruction in the commonschools within the year.

The colleges, academies, and common schools, constitute our system of public instruction. The pervading intelligence, the diminution of crime, the augmented comforts and enjoyments of society and its progressive refinement, public order, and the supremacy of the laws, testify that the system has been by no means unsuccessful.

It must, nevertheless, be admitted that its usefulness is much less than the state rightfully demands, both as a return for her munificence and a guaranty of her institutions. Some of our

colleges and academies languish in the midst of a community abounding in genius and talents, impatient of the ignorance which debases and the prejudices which enslave. The common-school system, but partially successful in agricultural districts, is represented as altogether without adaptation to cities and populous villages. The standard of education ought to be elevated, not merely to an equality with that attained in other states, but to that height which may be reached by cultivating the intellectual powers, with the aid of modern improvements, during the entire period when the faculties are quick and active, the curiosity insatiable, the temper practicable, and the love of truth supreme, The ability to read and write, with the rudiments of arithmetic. generally constitute the learning acquired in common schools. To these our academies and colleges add superficial instruction in the dead languages, without the philosophy of our own; scientific facts, without their causes; definitions, without practical application; the rules of rhetoric, without its spirit; and history, divested of its moral instructions. It is enough to show the defectiveness of our entire system, that its pursuits are irksome to all except the few endowed with peculiar genius and fervor to become the guides of the human mind, and that it fails to inspire either a love of science or passion for literature. Science is nothing else than a disclosure of the bounties the Creator has bestowed to promote the happiness of man, and a discovery of the laws by which mind and matter are controlled for that benignant end. Literature has no other object than to relieve our cares and increase our virtues. That the pursuits of either should require monastic seclusion, or be enforced by pains and penalties upon reluctant minds, is inconsistent with the generous purposes of both. Society can not be justly censured for indifference to education, when those who enjoy its precious advantages manifest so little of the enthusiasm it ought to inspire. All the associations of the youthful mind in the acquisition of knowledge, must be cheerful; its truths should be presented in their native beauty and in their natural order; the laws it reveals should be illustrated always by their benevolent adaptation to the happiness of mankind; and the utility and beauty of what is already known should incite to the endless investigation of what remains concealed. If education could be conducted upon principles like these, the attainments of our collegiate instruction

might become an ordinary measure of acquirement in our common schools; and our academies and colleges would be continually enjoying new revelations of philosophy, and attaining higher perfection in the arts which alleviate the cares of human life.

If these reflections seem extravagant, and the results they contemplate unattainable, it need only be answered that the improvability of our race is without limit, and all that is proposed is less wonderful than what has already been accomplished. I do not hesitate to invite efforts to establish the standard I have described. Postponed, omitted, and forgotten, as it too often is, amid the excitement of other subjects and the pressure of other duties, education is nevertheless the chief of our responsibilities. The consequences of the most partial improvement in our system of education will be wider and more enduring than the effects of any change of public policy; the benefits of any new principle of jurisprudence, or the results of any enterprise of physical improvement, we can accomplish. These consequences will extend through the entire development of the human mind, and be consummated only with its destiny. We seem at last to have ascertained that the only practicable manner of introducing normal schools into our country, is by engrafting that system upon our academies. I ardently hope you will adopt such further legislation as is required to make this effort successful. Provision has been made for the establishment of school district libraries. If I do not greatly err, this cheap and easy mode of bringing into contact with the juvenile powers the discoveries of science and the mysteries of the arts, will be the era of a new impulse to the cause of education. The common schools may resist every other influence, but they can not withstand that of the general improvement of the community. I can not too earnestly solicit your co-operation in the beginning of this wise and momentous policy. Visitation is the very principle of life in all seminaries of instruction, and acts upon both instructors and pupils by all the incentives which excite, and all the motives which encourage emulation. If properly applied, it would call to the aid of the state, in this mighty interest, allies at once the most natural and efficient, parents themselves. The regents of the university are, by virtue of their office, visiters of the colleges and academies, and inspectors are the legal visiters of common schools. How utterly this duty of visitation has fallen into disuse, your own observation

and the public voice abundantly testify. The office of inspector of common schools is unhappily always involved in the political organization of parties. Generally it falls, by custom strong as law, upon young men engrossed by private affairs. Its duties confer, in public estimation, nothing of the dignity, and maintain little of the importance, which would induce their faithful execution. For this evil of our whole system there is a remedy, simple, economical, and effectual-the establishment of a department of education, to be constituted by a superintendent appointed by the legislature, and a board to be composed of delegates from subordinate boards of education to be established in the several counties. The state board might exercise a general supervision, with powers of visitation of the colleges, and the county boards. the same powers in their respective counties. The duties of all these officers, except the superintendent, ought to be discharged without compensation, and the tenure of office might be made so long as to insure efficiency. I am satisfied the state abounds with competent individuals who would assume those duties without other remuneration than the consciousness of rendering enlightened and patriotic service in the cause of education.

The science which involves the physical laws most open to our investigation, and to which the primeval law of our existence compels us, and the art which precedes all other inventions, and whose cultivation leads to plenty and is cheered by health and contentment, are the last which receive the patronage of philosophy, or attain the favor of government. Mankind learned the distances and laws of planets, and even the periods of comets, before they conceived the mysteries of vegetation; and the fine arts were perfected in ages when agriculture, loaded with the superstition of centuries, was consigned to slaves. It may easily be explained why this should have been the experience of other ages and other countries. The powers of government have always been vested in classes or individuals furthest removed from the tillers of the soil; and ambition and pride have sought gratification in conquests and in homage of the fine arts. But it must not, it can not be so here, where the agricultural interest is sovereign, and, as it furnishes all the means, rightfully also supplies the motives, and directs the action of the government.

Every acre of cultivated land could be made to yield, with the VOL. II.-14