moral influence which has gone forth upon the spirit of the nations!

All these great educatory engines are national, legislative, and, with scarcely an exception, compulsory. They are accomplishing great results: in another part of these enquiries it may be our duty to decide whether these features ought to characterise popular education, and whether these external succours do not retard and vitiate it.

But there is another scene which invites our attention in these enquiries,-a New World unfolds itself to our view. Where, a few ages since, the wild Indian only reared his wattled wigwam and where his war-whoop rang, beneath the shadow of forests, old as the world,-where civilization had not set its foot, -where a book had been never seen,-where the white man was utterly unknown,-Europe has settled millions of its children in noble towns and cities. A mighty country has been reclaimed: as mighty a nation has been consolidated. Great are the physical outlines of that land. A majesty is in all its proportions. The people is growing up to them and drawing in their spirit. Its noblest colonization begun in martyrdom. The pilgrim-fathers fled not thither from immediate persecution, -for Holland had given them refuge and home, offering hospitality to their poor, and reward to their learned,—but they embarked in calm and courage for conscience sake. "For His name's sake they went forth." They sought the desert,

that their liberty might be no more hampered and that their benevolence might be no more restrained. Here they found a scale and range worthy of the Puritan soul, and the exiles of New England earnestly commenced the purpose of their mission,-the salvation of the aborigines and the settlers.

Their first

effort was to establish the means of education.

The

example has been emulated. State vies with state. The Old have legislated to secure it, and the Federal Government receives no New one without providing for it.

The last census of the State of New York, that of 1840, gives the population at 2,428,921.* The school funds consist of endowments, grants, and appropriations, from the state and individuals, and amount to 10,500,000 dollars, which, by the law, are declared inviolable. Commissioners of the common schools are elected annually by the people in the several towns. The towns are divided into school districts by these commissioners. The trustees of the schools are chosen by the inhabitants of these districts. These must undertake the erection or the maintenance of a schoolhouse in each district, out of a tax which they levy on the inhabitants, according to the vote of a yearly meeting thereof. The qualifications of the teachers must be approved by inspectors, independent of the teachers, but, like them, the choice of the people still. The contribution, by impost, in each district, must

* United States Almanac, or Complete Ephemeris. 1843.

equal that which is apportioned to it out of the public funds. Every pecuniary deficiency is supplied by tuition-fees upon those parents and guardians who are of sufficient ability. The poor are released from all such charge. The school is, in no instance, to be open less than four months in each year. The visitors and examiners of the schools are the inspectors and a deputy superintendent for the county. In him the more popular power of the system ceases, for he is appointed by the supervisors. These are responsible to the Secretary of State, who is superintendent of all the schools. To him are made the annual returns of all. Schools are maintained, wherever necessary, for the children of African descent. Normal schools are grafted on the most flourishing institutions, for the training of public teachers of both sexes. It is likewise required that a periodical journal be distributed to each school, a work extensively devoted to education, and not of a sectarian or party character, containing the laws of the States, the scholastic regulations enforced by the superintendent, his decision upon questions affecting the organization, administration, and government, of these schools,--and a comprehensive report, by the superintendent, to the legislature of their condition throughout the state. The whole number of districts is 10,886, in which schools are carried on during the average period of eight months in the year. The amount of children educated is

603,583.

This, if correet, will show that the number

of children is very nearly as four upon the whole inhabitants of New York state, -a higher computation than we can find in Europe.* The teachers received last year 1,043,000 dollars.

The principle of American education seems to be this. Each State requires that there shall be an organization of schools proportioned to the inhabitants of any region. In the New England states, this is about a school to two hundred souls. For this there are generally certain funds from bequest, and original votes of land or money by the legislature. Connecticut, in a commutation with the General Government of certain ancient tenures, received 2,000,000 of dollars which were nobly applied to its education fund. It is believed that this state alone dispenses with any assessWhenever public support is enforced, it is selftaxation. The character of the school, and its kind of tuition, greatly depend on the will of the subscribers. According to the circumstances of the children, their entrance is perfectly gratuitous, or slightly charged. It seems also an invariable rule, from which Connecticut is not shut out, that the schools must be built by the people; whatever public grant is made must go strictly to the conduct of the school.

ment.

A few other States of the Union may be also reviewed as to their encouragement of education. There are diversities, but among them will be found substantive agreement.

When Maine became independent, a law was passed requiring every town to raise annually, for the support of the schools, a sum equal to forty cents for every person, to be distributed among the school districts, in proportion to the number of inhabitants in each. Its permanent school fund is 17,526 dollars. The present amount of scholars is reckoned at 140,000. But then the boy-schools are open but two months, and the girls', but ten weeks. Otherwise it would be a gratifying result. For, as the population in 1843 was but 501,793,-and these statistics, at least, go as far back as the year 1840-(which interval has doubtless greatly increased them)-it would leave more than four of the total in a course of instruction. The writer from whom this statement is taken adds, that if one dollar and six cents, instead of forty cents, were levied on every inhabitant, the schools might be in activity all the year, and he believes the tax would not be regarded as a grievance.*

The government of New Hampshire has, by law, a vote of one half per cent. per annum on the capital stock of banks, which is appropriated for the free schools. It has no other independent resource. Vermont possesses, also, its literary fund,--a lien of six per cent. on the profits of the banks.

Massachusetts is generally considered a centre of light. It abounds in all liberal institutions. It is the eye of the States. We learn from different collations,+ * Book of the United States. + Ibid.