REMARKS

AT A HEARING BEFORE THE

JOINT COMMITTEE OF EDUCATION,

FEBRUARY, 1848,

IN AID OF

THE MEMORIAL OF THE COLLEGES.

CAMBRIDGE:

METCALF AND COMPANY,

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

1848.

REMARKS.

At the commencement of the session of the legislature, the following memorial was presented to the two Houses:

To the Honorable the Senate and the House of Representa

tives of the Commonweath of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled, the Memorial of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, and the Presidents and Trustees of Williams and Amherst Colleges, respectfully shows:

*

That while, at all periods of the history of the Commonwealth, the perception of the value of knowledge and intellectual cultivation has led the people, in their public and private capacities, "to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them," there is yet reason to think that the general estimate of the importance of education, in the widest sense, has scarcely kept pace with the proofs which have been given of its vast benefits. The experience of the few last years, however, has done much to expand the views of mankind everywhere on the subject, and particularly in some of the leading States of our own country; and your memorialists persuade themselves that the people of Massachusetts will not be found behind those of any other portion of the globe in their desire to extend the advantages of mental culture as widely and thoroughly as possible. The legislature at every period has done much, and private persons in every part of the Commonwealth have also done much, to prove that they were prepared to make great efforts

and sacrifices for this most important object; and there is no single thing in its civil administration which, directly and indirectly, has given to this Commonwealth a prouder distinction than the extent of its facilities for education. In this, however, as in every path of improvement, each step forward furnishes new motives and new power to advance; and your memorialists rely on the honorable ambition which has ever distinguished the people of Massachusetts, to justify the application to her legislature for aid in the great cause to which they have devoted much of their own thought and labor. The provision for elementary education, thanks to the wise arrangements of our forefathers, and of the legislature within a few years past, seems to be all that can be desired, or that can be advantageously done by the legislature. The rest may well be left to individual forethought, sagacity, and energy. But no endowments of a permanent character have yet been made by legislative authority for the promotion of those higher branches of education which are sought in colleges, and for which, to a very honorable extent, a foundation has been laid by private generosity. It is well known to your memorialists, indeed it is so obvious as to be perceived by all, that there exists a great and increasing demand for this more finished education in this Commonwealth, while, notwithstanding all that has been done for the purpose, the means of obtaining such an education are lamentably deficient in our best institutions. Your memorialists, therefore, respectfully pray your honorable body to grant them such aid in the attainment of an object, the importance of which no one will question, as the present flourishing condition of the finances of the Commonwealth will fully justify; and, without withdrawing any thing from the means set aside for the benefit of common schools, so to extend and enlarge that fund, from the same resources from which it has arisen, that it may become a fund for education in general, in colleges as well as in schools, the income of the additional portion to be so divided among the several colleges of the State as to the wisdom of the legislature shall seem best; and to be directed to such purposes, whether the increase of

--
-

apparatus, as books, instruments, and collections of natural objects, the general diminution of the charge for instruction, or the aid of the more indigent students, as the legislature shall prescribe.

The experience of your memorialists enables them to declare emphatically, that in any and all of these modes of usefulness the most copious bounty would not be lost; but, on the contrary, so numerous and great are the deficiencies of means, that many whose education would be in the highest degree useful to the public cannot even attempt to seek it, while, of all those who are able to make the effort, not one fails to find the most serious obstacles to his progress, for want of the books and collections which cannot yet be found in this country. Funds large enough for these purposes cannot be expected from private liberality, great and constant as it has been; but in the present condition of the Commonwealth, and by those prospective arrangements contemplated by your memorialists, few things would seem easier, or more honorable, than to make an ample and permanent provision for the best education of the whole people, and thus for the greatest prosperity, the most extended and the most beneficent influence of the Commonwealth.

By order of the President and Fellows of Harvard College,

EDWARD EVERETT, President.

In behalf of the Trustees of Williams College,

MARK HOPKINS, President.

By order of the Trustees of Amherst College, EDWARD HITCHCOCK, President.

January 5th, 1848.

This memorial, together with memorials from a large number of the most respectable citizens of the Commonwealth, in aid of the same, was referred to the Joint Committee of Education.