Provinces of, contrasted, 54; Model Farm of the Society of Friends in Galway, 87; Literary Travellers in, 141. Irish National Schools and School Books, 48. J Jordan, School Examination in, 138 Journal of Elucation, for U. C, 8; 25; 40: Opinions of the Press on the, 32; 64; Second Volume of the, 185; Prospectus of the Third Volume, 188. Journals of the House of Lords, discovery of, 141. K King's College, London, 63; the new M.litary School at, 87. King's College, Toronto, 70. Kingston, Annual Report of the Board of Trustees for the City of, 10; School Assessment in, 54. National Board, Dublin, new Com- Prussia, expenditure for Edueation missioner, 103. National Common School Conven- 10: 138. Niagara Falls, wear of, 151. Knowledge, the triumphs of 74; Noble proposal for the promotion of excellencies of, 91; value of, 99. Knox's College, Toronto, 70; 166. L Education in Upper Canada, 128; 144; 152-154. Nottingham, Peoples' College in 31. Normal School for Upper Canada, 48 Teachers from the, 48; Address of the Students to the Masters of, 59; Winter Session of, 160; Lady Hamilton, pension to, 150. 180. Legislator, duty of, 180. Legislative School Grant, apportion ment of the, for the year 1849, 96. Lennoxville, (L. C.) Bishop's College, 54; 139. Lenses, different kinds of, how constructed, 173. Let me die in my youth (poetry) 142. Letter envelopes, machine for manufacturing, 151. Lewisburgh University, 55. Liberia, the High School in, 140. Liebeg, when a boy, 74. Literary men, families of, 176. Literary and Scientific purposes, votes for, by the House of Commons, 111. Literature, dissimination of, in London, 111. Locomotives, improvement in, 62. School of, 46; Examination of house in, 102. London District, Grammar School in the, 138; progress of the School System in the, 176. Louisiana, Education in, 55. M Macaulay's History of England, 141. McGill College, Montreal, 70. Magnetic Telegraph the, (poetry,) 14; the construction of, explained with Illustrations, 92, 93; 108, 109. Magnetic Clock, 174. Mann, Hon. Horace, 79; tribute to, 88. Massachusetts, Education in, 55. Maunder, Samuel, Esq., death of, 95, Maynooth College, 140. 176. per Canada, Half-yearly Examination of the Students and Pupils in, 56, 57; 87: 154-156. Nova Scotia, Appropriation to Common Schools in, 47: Education in Halifax, 87; King's College, Windsor, 139. Parents, duty of, in visiting the Parisian School Statistics, 47. Physicians, the three great, 43. Poetry, statistics of, 175. Poets, libraries and effects of, 175. Politeness like an air cushion, 143. Popular Education, state of, on the Continent of Europe, 104, 105: among the English Wesleyan Methodists, 149; the result of free institutons, 159. Menai Straits, floating the Tubular Popular Ignorance," 54. Popular Literature, 176. Monument to the author of the Sea- Moral causes, 143. Musical Instruments, 43. Practical Science and Arts, with Illustrations, 156, 157; 172,173 Presbyterian parochial schools in the United States, 140. Press, Canadian newspaper, importance of its mission and duty, 182, 183. Primary Instruction in the dominions of the Sublime Porte, 103. Prince Edward District, Report of the Superintendent of Schools,138 Providence, City of, [R. 1. High Schools in, 65; 68, 69; Grammar School in, 81. in, 149. Saws, machine for sharpening and setting, 175. Scholars never known to be idle, 143. Scholastic momument to Cook the circumnavigator, 103. School Architecture, with ilustrations 12, 13; 25: 48, 49; 52, 53; 66; 68, 69: 73; 81; 84, 85: 100, 101: 145-147; 161-164; 176; by the School Assessments, evils of delayHon. H. Barnard, 28, 29; 33-38. ing the collection of, 66, 67. School Examinations, 166. School Government, hints on, 142. School-houses versus Arsenals, 6. School-houses, on the ventilation and warming of, by Kivas Tully, Esquire, 52; 69; 86: plans of, recommended by Her Majesty's Privy Council Committee on Education, School Reports, blank, for Trustees and District Superintenden's, 144. Schools free for all in the State of New-York, 169. Schools of Art or Practical Know. ledge-synopsis of a course of instruction; by H. Y. Hind, Esquire, Mathematical Master, etc., in the Provincial Normal School, 38-40. Science and Art, 27. Scientific Achievements, 141. Amercia. 96. tion in, 71. Southern Journal of Education, 96. South Western School Journal, 80, Spar, 111. Spectacles, upon what principle con structed, 173. Speed, a fly's, 63. State Normal School at Albany, adjuncts to the, 55. Statistics of Common Schools in the Summer, by Miss Clarke, 107. 141. T Talbot District, Report of Schools in the. 46. Teacher, the neglected, poetry, 50; Talfourd, Sergeant, 141. striking application of the mission and duties of a, 89; deportment of the, 98, advice to a young, 143. Teacher's ability and duty to aid the parent, 42. Teachers' calling, the, 143. Teachers, preparation, the, 158. Teachers, qualifications and duties of, 6; rules for, 50; great mistake in employing, 143. Teachers' Associations and Educa tional Conventions, 99; 166. Teachers' Institutes, 143. Teachers' Wages, 98. Teaching by example, 82. Telegraph, construction of the elec tro-magnetic, explained and illus trated, 92, 93: 108, 109; 112. Tennessee, School Fund of, 55. Terrific Theory, 95. Trees and Literature, connexion be tween, 151. True greatness, 107. Tubular Bridges for railways, 94- U Upper Canada, Annual School Re- Value of Exertion, 15. Von Humbolt, Alexander, 174. Wales, Normal College for, 11. What Education is, 6. Why the state should educate, 15. 175. Y Young, to the. 83. Young Teacher, advice to a, 143. Z Zodiac, the, 175. Address TO THE INHABITANTS OF UPPER CANADA, ON THE SYSTEM OF FREE SCHOOLS. BY THE CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS. I beg to invite the attention of the Public Press, of District Councillors and School Trustees, of Clergy and Magistrates, and of all persons anxious for the education of all Canadian youth, to the principle on which the expense of promoting that object should be defrayed. The School Law authorises two methods, in addition to that of voluntary contribution; the method of rate-bill on parents sending children to School, and the method of assessment on the property of all, and thus securing to the children of all equal access to School instruction. The discretionary power of adopting either method, is placed by law-where I think it ought to be placed-in the hands of the people themselves in each municipality. My present object is, simply to submit to your consideration the principal reasons which induce me to think that the one of these methods is better than the other, in order to secure to your children the advantages of a good education. The method which I believe you will find most efficient, has been thus defined : "A tax upon the property of all by the majority for the education of all." 1. My first reason for commending this as the best method of providing for the education of your children is, that the people who have been educated under it for two hundred years, are distinguished for personal independence, general intelligence, great industry, economy and prosperity, and a wide diffusion of the comforts and enjoyments of domestic life. The truth of this remark in reference to the character and condition of the people of the New-England States, will, I presume, be disputed by none. If their system of civil government be thought less favorable to the cultivation and exercise of some of the higher virtues than that which we enjoy, the efficacy of their School system is the more apparent under circumstances of comparative disadvantage. I will give the origin of this School system in the words of the English Quarterly Journal of Education-published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and at a time when LORD BROUGHAM was Chairman and Lord JoHN RUSSELL, Vice-Chairman of the Committee : "The first hint of this system-the great principle of which is, that the property of all shall be taxed by the majority for the education of all-is to be found in the records of the city of Boston for the year 1635, when, at a public or 'body' meeting, a schoolmaster was appointed 'for the teaching and nurturing of children among us,' and a portion of the public lands given him for his support. This, it should be remembered, was done within five years after the first peopling of that little peninsula, and before the humblest wants of its inhabitants were supplied; while their very subsistence from year to year was uncertain; and when no man in the colony slept in his bed without apprehension from the savages, who not only everywhere crossed on their borders, but still dwelt in the midst of them. "This was soon imitated in other villages and hamlets springing up in the wilderness. Winthrop, the earliest governor of the colony, and the great patron of Free-schools, says in his journal under date of 1645, that divers Free-sch year in other towns, and that in Boston it for ever £50 a year to the master with usher. But thus far only the individual tow however, the Colonial Assembly of Massa by law, that every town in which there w keep a Free-school, in which reading and and every town where there were one hun a school, where youth could be prepared mathematics, for the College or Univers been established by the same authority a and 1672, the colonies of Connecticut similar laws; and from this time the syster ing population of that part of America, un settled and prominent characteristics, and present day." I will now present the character of this those who best understand it. That gre DANIEL WEBSTER, received his early tr and stated on one occasion, that had he a Priam himself, he would send them all to WEBSTER, in his published Speech on the chusetts, expresses himself on its Free-sch ing words :- "In this particular, New-England ma think, a merit of a peculiar character. S constantly maintained the principle, that it and the bounden duty of government, to pr of all youth. That which is elsewhere left we secure by law. For the purpose of pub every man subject to taxation in proportion look not to the question, whether he him children to be benefited by the education fo regard it as a wise and liberal system of po and life, and the peace of society are secure in some measure, the extension of the pen salutary and conservative principle of virtu early age. We hope to excite a feeling of of character, by enlarging the capacity, an of intellectual enjoyment. By general inst as possibly, to purify the whole moral atn sentiments uppermost, and to turn the stro opinion, as well as the censures of the law of religion, against immorality and crime. beyond the law, and above the law, in the p and well-principled moral sentiment. prolong the time, when, in the villages an England, there may be undisturbed sleep And knowing that our government rests dir that we may preserve it, we endeavour to direction to that public will. We do not, We to be philosophers or statesmen ; but we co expectation of the duration of our system that trust, that by the diffusion of general virtuous sentiments, the political fabric m against open violence and overthrow, as sure undermining of licentiousness." rsity, late Governor of the State of Massachusetts, and late merican Ambassador to England-remarks as follows, in his ddress on the Advantage of Useful Knowledge to Working Ten : "Think of the inestimable good conferred on all succeeding enerations by the early settlers of America, who first established e system of public schools, where instruction should be furnished ratis, to all the children in the community. No such thing was efore known in the world. There were schools and colleges, pported by funds which had been bequeathed by charitable indiduals; and in consequence, most of the Common Schools of this nd in Europe, were regarded as establishments for the poor. So ep-rooted is this idea, that when I have been applied to for inforation as to our public schools from those parts where no such stem exists, I have frequently found it hard to obtain credit, when have declared, that there is nothing disreputable in the public inion here, in sending children to schools supported at the public arge. The idea of Free-schools for the whole people, when it st crossed the minds of our forefathers, was entirely original; it how much of the prosperity and happiness of their children ad posterity has flowed from this living spring of public intellience." The following extracts from the Annual School Reports of 1841 d 1848, prepared by the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board Education, deserve special attention as well for the beauty of eir language as for the nobleness of the sentiments which they press : "The present year (1847,) completes the second century since e Free Schools of Massachusetts were first established. In 1647, hen a few scattered and feeble settlements, almost buried in the pths of the forests were all that constituted the Colony of Maschusetts; when the entire population consisted of twenty-one ousand souls; when the external means of the people were small, eir dwellings humble, and their raiment and subsistence scanty id homely; when the whole valuation of all the colonial estates, oth public and private, would hardly equal the inventory of many private individual at the present day; when the fierce eye of the vage was nightly seen glaring from the edge of the surrounding ilderness, and no defence or succor was at hand: it was then, mid all these privations and dangers, that the Pilgrim Fathers onceived the magnificent idea of a Free and Universal Education r the people; and, amid all their poverty, they stinted themselves a still scantier pittance; amid all their toils, they imposed upon emselves still more burdensome labors; amid all their perils, they -aved still greater dangers, that they might find the time and the eans to reduce their grand conception to practice. Two divine eas filled their great hearts, their duty to God and to posterity. or the one, they built the church; for the other, they opened the hool. Religion and Knowledge !-two attributes of the same orious and eternal truth,—and that truth, the only one on which mortal or mortal happiness can be securely founded. "As an innovation upon all pre-existing policy and usages, the tablishment of Free Schools was the boldest ever promulgated, nce the commencement of the Christian era. As a theory, it uld have been refuted and silenced by a more formidable array of gument and experience than was ever marshalled against any her opinion of human origin. But time has ratified its soundness. wo centuries now proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, beneficent as it was disinterested. It was one of those grand ental and moral experiments whose effects cannot be determined a single generation. But now, according to the manner in which man life is computed, we are the sixth generation from its inders, and have we not reason to be grateful both to God and n for its unnumbered blessings? The sincerity of our gratitude ust be tested by our efforts to perpetuate and improve what they tablished."—(Tenth Annual Report to the Board of Education, 1847, pp. 107, 108.) "The Massachusetts school system represents favorably the stein of all the New-England states. Not one of them has element of prosperity or of permanence, of security against ours does not possess. Our law requires that a school should be sustained in every town in the State,-even the smallest and the poorest not being excepted ;-and that this school shall be as open and free to all the children as the light of day, or the air of heaven. No child is met on the threshold 'of the school-house door, to be asked for money, or whether his parents are native or foreign, whether or not they pay a tax, or what is their faith. The schoolhouse is common property. All about it are enclosures and hedges, indicating private ownership and forbidding intrusion; but there is a spot which even repacity dares not lay its finger upon. The most avaricious would as soon think of monopolizing the summer cloud, as it comes floating up from the west to shed its treasures upon the thirsty earth, as of monopolizing these fountains of knowledge. Public opinion,-that sovereign in representative governments, is in harmony with the law. Not unfrequently there is some private opposition, and occasionally it avows itself and assumes an attitude of hostility; but perseverance on the part of the friends of progress always subdues it, and the success of their measures eventually shame it out of existence.”—(Eleventh Annual Report, 1848, pp. 88, 89.) "It is a gratifying circumstance that many of our sister States, convinced by our success, have followed our example; and, at the present time, in the rich and populous county of Lancashire, in England, a movement is on foot, led on by some of the best men in the United Kingdom, whose object is to petition Parliament for a charter, empowering that County to establish a system of Free Schools, on a basis similar to ours.' "—(Ib. p. 24.) These extracts contain the testimony of the most competent witnesses as to the principles and efficiency of the Free-school system; while the well-known character of the New-England people for selfreliance, economy, industry, morality, intelligence and general enterprise, is a sufficient illustration of the influence and tendency of the system, even under the admitted disadvantage of a defective Christianity and a peculiar form of government. What such a system of schools has accomplished in the less genial climate of New-England under such circumstances, will it not accomplish in Upper Canada under more favorable circumstances? It is worthy of remark, that in no State or City where the Free-school system has been fairly tried, has it ever been abandoned. The inhabitants of New-England who have tried it for two centuries, (and they are second to no people in their rigid notions of economy and individual rights,) regard it as the greatest blessing which their country enjoys, and her highest glory. Other cities, towns and states are adopting the New-England system of supporting schools as fast as they become acquainted with its principles and operations. 2. The second ground on which I commend this system of supporting Common Schools to your favorable consideration, is its cheapness to parents educating their children. I will select the example of one District, rather better than an average specimen ; and the same mode of reasoning will apply to every District in Upper Canada, and with the same results. In one District there were reported 200 Schools in operation in 1848; the average time of keeping open the Schools was eight months; the average salaries of teachers was £45 7s. 1d., the total amount of the money available for the Teachers' Salaries, including the Legislative Grant, Council Assessment and Rate-bills, was £7,401 18s. 41d; the whole number of pupils between the ages of five and sixteen years on the School Registers, was 9147; the total number of children between those ages resident in the District, 20,600; cost per pupil for eight months, about sixteen shillings. Here it will be seen that more than one half of the children of school age in the District were not attending any school. Now, suppose the schools be kept open the whole year, instead of two-thirds of it; suppose the male and female Teachers to be equal in number, and the salaries of the former to average £60, and those of the latter £40 ; suppose the 20,600 children to be in the schools instead of 9147 of them. The whole sum required for the salaries of teachers would be £10,000-the cost per pupil would be less than ten shillings--less than five shillings per inhabitant--which would be reduced still further by deducting the amount of the Legislative School Grant. Thus would a provision be made for the education of every child in the District for the whole year; there would be no trouble or disputes about quarterly school-rate-bills; there would 3. This is also the most effectual method of providing the best, as well as the cheapest, school for the youth of each School Section. Our schools are now often poor and feeble, because a large portion of the best educated inhabitants stand aloof from them, as unworthy of their support, as unfit to educate their children. Thus the Common Schools are frequently left to the care and support of the least instructed part of the population, and are then complained of as inferior in character and badly supported. The free school system makes every man a supporter of the school according to his property. All persons and especially the more wealthy-who are thus identified with the school, will feel interested in it; they will be anxious that their contributions to the school should be as effective as possible, and that they themselves may derive all possible benefit from it. When all the inhabitants of a School Section thus become concerned in the school, its character and efficiency will inevitably be advanced. The more wealthy contributors will seek to make the school fit and efficient for the English education of their own children; the Trustees will be under no fears from the disinclination or opposition of particular individuals in employing a suitable teacher and stipulating his salary; and thus is the foundation laid for a good school, adapted to all the youth of the Section. The character of the school will be as much advanced, as the expense of it to individual parents will be diminished; the son of the poor man, equally with the son of the rich man, will drink from the stream of knowledge at the common fountain, and will experience corresponding elevation of thought, sentiment, feeling, and pursuit. Such a sight cannot fail to gladden the heart of Christian humanity. 4. The free school system is the true, and, I think, only effectual remedy for the pernicious and pauperising system which is at present incident to our Common Schools. Many children are now kept from school on the alleged grounds of parental poverty. How far this excuse is well founded, is immaterial to the question in hand; of the fact of the excuse itself, and of its wide-spread, blasting influence, there can be no doubt. Trustees of schools are also invested with authority to exonerate poor parents, desirous of educating their children, from the payment of a school rate-bill-an additional amount of rate-bill being imposed upon the more wealthy parents of children attending the school, in order to make up the deficiencies occasioned by the exemption of the poorer parents. Such parents are thus invested with the character of paupers; their children are educated as pauper children; while other parents, sooner than attach to themselves and children such a designation, will keep their children from the school altogether-thus entailing upon them the curse of ignorance, if not of idleness, in addition to the misfortune of poverty. Now, while one class of poor children are altogether deprived of the benefits of all education by parental pride or indifference; the other class of them are educated as paupers, or as ragged scholars. Is it not likely that children educated under this character, will imbibe the spirit of it? If we would wish them to feel and act and rely upon themselves as free men when they grow up to manhood, let them be educated in that spirit when young. Such is the spirit of the free school system. It banishes the very idea of pauperism from the school. No child comes there by sufferance; but every one comes there upon the ground of right. poor man as well as the rich man pays for the support of the school according to his means; and the right of his son to the school is thus as legal as that of the rich man's son. It is true, the poor man does not pay as large a tax in the abstract as his rich neighbour; but that does not the less entitle him to the protection of the law; nor should it less entitle him to the advantages provided by law for the education of his children. The grovelling and slavish spirit of pauperism becomes extinct in the atmosphere of the free school. Pauperism and poor laws are unknown in free school countries; and a system of free schools would, in less than half a century, supersede their necessity in any country. The 5. The system of free schools makes the best provision and furnishes the strongest inducements for the education of every youth in each School Section of the land. To compel the education of children by the terror of legal pains and p with my ideas of the true method of promoti but to place before parents the strongest mo children, and to provide the best facililies fo the dictate of sound policy and Christian pat rate-bill system holds out an inducement and to keep his child from the school. The p difficulty is increased in proportion to the nu to educate. The rate-bill is always sufficient parent to keep his child or children from the pels the poor man to do so, or else to get the In proportion to the smallness of the school of the rate-bill on each of the few suppor make up the salary of the Teacher; and as in pupils, will the rate-bill increase on tho withdrawment of every pupil from the school of the Trustees to fulfill their engagement w increases the temptation to others to remov Thus are Trustees often embarrassed and deprived of the just fruits of their labours-g and poor ones substituted-schools often clo thousands of children left without school ins Now, the free school system of supporting s most of these evils. A rate being imposed of a School Section according to his means, made for the education of every child in s parent feels that having paid his school-rat much-he has paid what the law requires for School education of all his children, and that by law to the benefits of the school. Howeve having paid what the law requires, he can claim children as a legal right, and not supplicate it a His children go to the school, not in the cha ragged pauperism, but in the ennobling spirit and on equal vantage ground with others. that he has paid for the education of his childr that they may have the benefit of it. While the rate-bill per pupil is a temptation to each parent from the school, the annual school rate upon each parent with a corresponding inducement to school-relieving Trustees at the same time uncertainty as to the means of providing for th It is not, therefore, surprising to find that wher system has been tried in Upper Canada or els ance of pupils at school has increased from fi per cent. The facilities thus provided for the child in a School Section, will leave the ignora natural parent without excuse for the educatio children. The finger of universal reproof and s will soon prove more powerful than statute infringing any individual right, will morally co nexion with higher considerations, to send his This is the system of "compulsory education" where in operation-the compulsion of provisio education of children-the compulsion of their u educated-the compulsion of universal interest compulsion of universal concentrated opinion in tion of every child in the land. Under such course of ten years, an uneducated Canadian monstrous phenomenon. 6. The system of Free Schools may also b the ground of its tendency to promote unity a among the inhabitants of each school division. of quarterly rate-bills is a source of frequent n putes and divisions. The imposition of an an the inhabitants of a School Section according an end to quarterly rate-bill disputes and div feelings as well as its interests of all in one to promote that unity and mutual affection which and a oneness of interest are calculated to crea interest of one will be the care and interest o have the best school possible;--and the intelled school, like the material light of heaven, will every child in the School Section. 7. I think the system of Free Schools is, furthermore, most consonant with the true principles and ends of civil government. Can a more noble and economical provision be made for the security of life, liberty and property than by removing and preventing the accumulation of that ignorance and its attendant vices which are the great source of insecurity and danger, and the invariable pretext if not justification of despotism? Are any natural rights more fundamental and sacred than those of children to such an education as will fit them for their duties as citizens? If a parent is amenable to the laws who takes away his child's life by violence, or wilfully exposes it to starvation, does he less violate the inherent rights of the child in exposing it to moral and intellectual starvation? It is noble to recognize this inalienable right of infancy and youth by providing for them the means of the education to which they are entitled,--not as children of particular families, but as children of our race and country. And how perfectly does it harmonize with the true principles of civil government, for every man to support the laws and all institutions designed for the common good, according to his ability. This is the acknowledged principle of all just taxation; and it is the true principle of universal education. It links every man to his fellow-man in the obligations of the common interests; it wars with that greatest, meanest foe to all social advancement-the isolation of selfish individuality; and implants and nourishes the spirit of true patriotism by making each man feel that the welfare of the whole society is his welfare--that collective interests are first in order of importance and duty, and separate interests are second. And such relations and obligations have their counterpart in the spirit and injunctions of our Divine Christianity. There, while every man is required to bear his own burden according to his ability, the strong are to aid the weak, and the rich are to supply the deficiencies of the poor. This is the pervading feature and animating spirit of the Christian religion; and it is the basis of that system of supporting public schools which demands the contribution of the poor man according to his penury, and of the rich man according to his abundance. 8. But against this system of Free Schools, certain OBJECTIONS have been made; the principal of which I will briefly answer. First objection: "The Common Schools are not fit to educate the children of the higher classes of society, and therefore these classes ought not to be taxed for the support of the Common Schools." Answer. The argument of this objection is the very cause of the evil on which the objection itself is founded. The unnatural and unpatriotic separation of the wealthier classes from the Common School, has caused its inefficiency and alleged degradation. Had the wealthy classes been identified with the Common School equally with their poorer neighbors,-as is the case in Free-school countries--the Common School would have been fit for the education of their children, and proportionally better than it now is for the education of the children of the more numerous common classes of society. In Free School Cities and States, the Common Schools are acknowledged to be the best elementary schools in such Cities and States; so much so, that the Governor of the State of Massachusetts remarked at a late school celebration, that if he had the riches of an Astor, he would send all his children through the Common School to the highest institutions in the State. If the wealthy classes can support expensive private schools, their influence and exertions would elevate the Common School to an equality with, if not superiority over, any private school, at less expense to themselves, and to the great benefit of their less affluent neighbors. The support of the education which is essential for the good of all, should be made obligatory upon all; and if all are combined in support of the Common School, it will soon be rendered fit for the English education of all. If persons do not choose to avail themselves of a public institution, that does not release them from the obligations of contributing to its support. It is also worthy of remark, that the Board of Trustees in each City and incorporated Town in Upper Canada, has authority to establish male and female primary, secondary and high schools, adapted to the varied intellectual wants of each City and Town; while in each country School Section, it requires the united means of intelligence of the whole population to establish and support one thoroughly good school. Second objection: "It is unjust to tax persons for the support of a school which they do not patronize, and from which they derive no individual benefit." Answer. If this objection be well founded, it puts an end to school tax of every kind, and abolishes school and college endowments of every description; it annihilates all systems of public instruction, and leaves education and schools to individual caprice and inclination. This doctrine was tried in the Belgian Netherlands after the revolt of Belgium from Holland in 1830; and in the course of five years, educational desolation spread throughout the kingdom, and the Legislature had to interfere to prevent the population from sinking into semi-barbarism. But the principle of public tax for schools, has been avowed in every school assessment which has ever been imposed by our Legislature, or by any District Council; the same principle is acted upon in the endowment of a Provincial University-for such endowment is as much public property as any part of the public annual revenue of the country. The principle has been avowed and acted upon by every republican State of America, as well as by the Province of Canada and the countries of Europe. The only question is, as to the extent to which the principle should be applied-whether to raise a part or the whole of what is required to support the public school. On this point it may be remarked, that if the principle be applied at all, it should be applied in that way and to that extent which will best promote the object contemplated—namely, the sound education of the people; and experience, as well as the nature of the case, shows, that the free system of supporting schools is the most, and indeed the only, effectual means of promoting the universal education of the people. I remark further on this second objection, that if it be sound, then must the institutions of government itself be abandoned. If a man can say, I am not to be taxed for the support of what I do not patronize, or from which I receive no individual benefit, then will many a man be exempted from contributing to support the administration of Justice, for he does not patronize either the civil or criminal Courts; nor should he pay a tax for the erection and support of jails, for he seeks no benefit from them. Should it be said, that jails are necessary for the common safety and welfare, I answer are they more so than Common Schools? Is a jail for the confinement and punishment of criminals more important to a community than a school for education in knowledge and virtue ? In all good governments the interests of the majority are the rule of procedure; and in all free governments the voice of the majority determines what shall be done by the whole population for the common interests, without reference to isolated individual cases of advantage or disadvantage, of inclination or disinclination. Does not the Common School involve the common interests; and the Free-school system supposes a tax upon all by the majority for the education of all. I observe again on this second objection, that what it assumes as fact is not true. It assumes that none are benefited by the Common School but those who patronize it. This is the lowest, narrowest and most selfish view of the subject, and indicates a mind the most contracted and grovelling. This view applied to a Provincial University, implies that no persons are benefited by it except graduates; applied to criminal jurisprudence and its requisite officers and prisons, it supposes that none are benefited by them except those whose persons are rescued from the assaults of violence, or whose property is restored from the hands of theft; applied to canals, harbours, roads, &c., this view assumes that no persons derive any benefit from them except those who personally navigate or travel over them. The fact is, that whatever tends to diminish crime and lessen the expenses of criminal jurisprudence, enhances the value of a whole estate of a country or district; and is not this the tendency of good Common School education? And who has not witnessed the expenditure of more money in the detection, imprisonment and punishment of a single uneducated criminal, than would be necessary to educate in the Common Scbool half a dozen children? Is it not better to spend money upon the child than upon the culprit-to prevent crime rather than punish it ? Again, whatever adds to the security of property of all kinds increases its value; and does not the proper education of the people do so? Whatever also tends to develope the physical resources of a country, must add to the value of property; and is not this the tendency of the education of the people? Is not education in fact |