Having detained you so long with these observations, I must yet advert to another most interesting topic, the FREE SCHOOLS. In this particular NewEngland may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of á peculiar character. She early adopted and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the undoubted right, and the bounden duty of government, to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether he himself have, or have not, children to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity, and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security, beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well prin

cipled moral sentiment, Welhapes to continue and prolong the time, when, in the villages, and farmI houses of New-England, there may be undisturbed i sleep within unbarred doors. And knowing that our government rests directly on the public will, that web may preserve it, we endeavour to give calasafe and proper direction to that public will. We do not indeed, expect all men to be philosophers or states.s men; but we confidently trust, and our expectation of the duration of our system of government rests on that trust, that by the diffusion of general knowledge and good and virtuous sentiments, the political far bric may be secure, as well against open, violenced and overthrow, as against the slow but sure under I

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We know, that at the present time, an attempt is making in the English Parliament to provide by law for the education of the poor, and that a gentleman of distinguished character, (Mr. Brougham) has taken the lead, in presenting a plan to government for carrying that purpose into effect. And yet, al though the representatives of the three kingdoms listened to him with astonishment as well as delight, we hear no principles, with which we ourselves have not been familiar from youth; we see nothing in the plan, but an approach towards that system which has been established in New-England for more than, a century and a half. It is said that in England, not than one child in fifteen possesses the means of being taught to read and write; in Wales, one in

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twenty in France, until lately, when some improvement has been made, not more than one in thirty-five. Now, it is hardly too strong to say, that in New-England, every child possesses such means. It would be difficult to find an instance to the contrary, unless where it should be owing to the negligence of the parent; and in truth the means are actually used and enjoyed by nearly every one. A youth of fifteen, of either sex, who cannot both read and write, is very unfrequently to be found. Who can make this comparison, or contemplate this spectacle, without delight and a feeling of just pride? Does any history shew property more beneficently applied? Did any government ever subject the property of those who have estates, to a burden, for a purpose more favourable to the poor, or more useful to the whole community?

A conviction of the importance of public instruc tion was one of the earliest sentiments of our ancestors. No lawgiver of ancient or modern times has expressed more just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, than the early records of the Colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed here. Assembled on this very spot, a hundred and fifty-three years ago, the legislature of this Colony declared; "For as much as the maintenance of good literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and flourishing state of Societies and Republics, this Court doth therefore order, that in whatever township in this government, consisting of fifty families or up

wards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a grammar school, such township shall allow at least twelve pounds, to be raised by rate, on all the inhabitants."

Having provided, that all youth should be instructed in the elements of learning by the institution of Free Schools, our ancestors had yet another duty to perform. Men were to be educated for the professions, and the public. For this purpose they founded the University, and with incredible zeal and perseverance they cherished and supported it, through all trials and discouragements. On the subject of the University, it is not possible for a son of NewEngland to think without pleasure, nor to speak without emotion. Nothing confers more honour on the state where it is established, or more utility on the country at large. A respectable University is an establishment, which must be the work of time. If pecuniary means were not wanting, no new institution could possess character and respectability at once. We owe deep obligation to our ancestors, who began, almost on the moment of their arrival, the work of building up this institution.

Although established in a different government, the Colony of Plymouth manifested warm friendship for Harvard College. At an early period, its government took measures to promote a general subscription throughout all the towns in this Colony, in aid of its small funds. Other Colleges were subsequently founded and endowed, in other places, as the

ability of the people allowed; and we may flatter ourselves, that the means of education, at present enjoyed in New-England, are not only adequate to the diffusion of the elements of knowledge among all classes, but sufficient also for respectable attainments in literature and the sciences.

Lastly, our ancestors have founded their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all the social dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other, and to society, enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good christians, makes them good citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion free and unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothing upon which we can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we can express a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the inestimable importance of that religion to man, both in regard to this life, and that which is to come. If the blessings of our political and social condition have not now been too highly estimated, we cannot well over-rate the responsibility and duty which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government, religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We are in the line of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by