In the first constitution, adopted 1776, there is no provision for education; but as amended in 1831, the Legislature is instructed "to provide by law" "for establishing schools, and promoting arts and sciences."

Previous to the Revolution, the public school system had not obtained root beyond the limits of the eastern States. The township and district school organizations of New England had, however, excited the admiration of Wythe, Jefferson, and other eminent Virginia statesmen.

Patrick Henry wrote to John Adams: "It shall be my incessant study so to form our portrait of government that a kindred with New England may be discerned in it; and if all your excellencies cannot be preserved, yet I hope to retain so much of the likeness that posterity shall pronounce us descended from the same stock." Richard Bland Lee, at a later period, on the floor of Congress, spoke of "the forefathers of New England, who have established the wisest institutions for the perpetuation of human liberty and human happiness the world has seen. Debate on Madison's resolutions, Jan. 20, 1794.

Such views having been cordially entertained, it was not surprising that Jefferson, as one of those appointed by Virginia, after the Declara

*Wansey's Excursion to the United States. 1794.

tion of Independence by the Colonies, to prepare a cole of laws adapted to the altered condition of that commonwealth, should strive to introduce the New England system of common schools.

The year that the first constitution was formed, a committee was appointed to prepare a code of laws adapted to the altered condition of affairs.

In 1779 Wythe and Jefferson made a report, in which was a full chapter from the pen of Jefferson on public schools. The caption was

A BILL for the more general diffusion of knowledge.

SECTION 1. Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shown, that even under the best forms those intrusted with power have in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes; and whereas it is generally true that the people will be happiest whose laws are best, and are best administered, and that laws will be wisely formed and honestly administered in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness, that those persons whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered, by liberal education, worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow-citizens, and that they should be called to the charge without regard to wealth, birth, or other accidental condition or circumstance. But the indigence of the greater number, disabling them from so educating at their own expense those of their children whom nature hath fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments of the public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expense of all, than that the happiness of all should be confided to the weak or wicked.

The succeeding sections provided that each county should be divided in convenient districts for public schools. "At every one of these schools," in the language of the bill, “shall be taught reading, writing, common arithmetic; and the books which shall be used therein for instructing the children to read shall be such as will, at the same time, make them acquainted with Grecian, Roman, English, and American history."

It was also provided that over every ten of these schools an overseer should be appointed annually, by the aldermen, to select teachers, to visit the schools, to direct in the choice of reading books, and superintend the teachers.

The superintendents were to meet in convention, and establish at central points a certain number of grammar schools, in which were to be taught Latin, Greek, grammar, geography, and higher arithmetic. The most needy and meritorious scholar from a grammar school district was to be educated at the expense of the State, and one scholar

was to be selected from the grammar schools to be educated gratuitously at college.

Five years after the bill in manuscript was presented, it was printed by order of the assembly of 1784.

Jefferson says: "One provision of the bill was that the expenses of the schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor."

In 1796 the assembly acted upon the bill, but inserted a provision leaving to each county court to declare when the act should go into operation within the limits of its jurisdiction, which, adds Jefferson, "completely defeated it. The justices being generally of the more wealthy class, were unwilling to incur the burden, and I believe it was not suffered to commence in a single county."

His interest in common schools never flagged, although his native State could not be aroused to its best interests, and in a letter to Hou. Joseph C. Cabell, dated November 28, 1820, he says:

"Surely Governor Clinton's display of the gigantic effort of New York towards the educating of her citizens will stimulate the pride, as well as the patriotism, of our legislature to look to the reputation and safety of our country, to rescue it from the degradation of becoming the Barbary of the Union, and of falling into the ranks of even our negroes. To that condition it is fast sinking. We shall be in the hands of the other States what our indigenous predecessors were when surrounded by the sciences and arts of Europe. The success of education before the Revolution placed her with the foremost of the sister colonies. What is her education now? Where is it? The little we have we import, like beggars, from other States, or import the beggars, to betow on us their miserable crumbs."

The first constitution was adopted in 1776, second in 1830, third in 1851, and fourth in 1864.

In the constitution adopted in 1830 there is no reference to education, but in that of 1851 is the following provision:

A capitation tax, equal to the tax assessed on land of the value of two hundred dollars, shall be levied on every white male inhabitant who has attained the age of twenty-one years; and one equal moiety of the capitation tax upon white persons shall be applied to the purposes of education in primary and free schools; but nothing herein contained shall prevent exemptions of taxable polls in cases of bodily infilmity.

In the revision of 1864, this provision is retained in the twentysecond article.

The first constitution was adopted in 1776; the second in 1851; and the third in 1864. The first provision on education is in that of 1864, and is as follows:

ARTICLE VIII-EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The governor shall within thirty days after the ratification by the people of this constitution appoint, subject to the confirmation of the senate at its first session thereafter, a State superintendent of public instruction, who shall hold his office for five years, and until his successor shall have been appointed and shall have been qualitied. He shall receive an annual salary of twenty-five hundred dollars, and such additional sum for travelling and incidental expenses as the general assembly may by law provide; shall report to the general assembly within thirty days after the commencement of its first session under this constitution, a uniform system of free public schools, and shall perform such other duties pertaining to his office as may from time to time be prescribed by law.

SECTION 2. There shall be a State board of education, consisting of the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house of delegates, and the State superintendent of public instruction, which board shall perform such duties as the gen eral assembly may direct.

SECTION 3. There shall be in each county such number of school commissioners as the State superintendent of public instruction shall deem necessary, who shall be appointed by the State board of education; shall hold office for four years, and shall perform such duties and receive such compensation as the general assembly or State superintendent may direct; the school commissioners of Baltimore city shall remain as at present constituted, and shall be appointed as at present, by the mayor and city council, subject to such alterations and amendments as may be made from time to time by the general assembly, or the said mayor and city council.

SECTION 4. The general assembly, at its first session after the adoption of this constitution, shall provide a uniform system of free public schools, by which a school shall be kept open and supported free of expense for tuition in each school district, for at least six months in each year; and in case of failure on the part of the general assembly to provide, the system reported to it by the State superintendent of public instruction shall become the system of free pubric schools of the State: Provided, That the report of the State superintendent shall be in conformity with the provisions of this constitution, and such system shall be subject to such alterations, conformable to this article, as the general assembly may from time to time enact.

SECTION 5. The general assembly shall levy at each regular session after the adoption of this constitution, an annual tax of not less than ten cents on each

hundred dollars of taxable property throughout the State, for the support of free public schools, which tax shall be collected at the same time and by the same agents as the general State levy; and shall be paid into the treasury of the State, and shall be distributed under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, among the counties and the city of Baltimore, in proportion to their respective population between the ages of five and twenty years: Provided, That the general assembly shall not levy any additional school tax upon particular counties, unless such county express by popular vote its desire for such tax; the city of Baltimore shall provide for its additional school tax as at present, or as may hereafter be provided by the general assembly, or by the mayor and city council of Baltimore. SECTION 6. The general assembly shall further provide by law, at its first session after the adoption of this constitution, a fund for the support of the free public schools of the State, by the imposition of an annual tax of not less than five cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property throughout the State, the proceeds of which tax shall be known as the public school fund, and shall be invested by the treasurer, together with its annual interest, until such time as said fund shall by its own increase and any addition which may be made to it from time to time, together with the present school fund, amount to six millions of dollars, when the tax of ten cents on the hundred dollars, authorized by the preceding section, may be discontinued in whole or in part as the general assembly may direct: the principal fund of six millions, hereby provided, shall remain forever inviolate as the free public school fund of the State, and the annual interest of said school fund shall be disbursed for educational purposes only, as may be prescribed by law.

In the constitution just formed and to be submitted to the people on the eighteenth of September for adoption or rejection, there is the following:

ARTICLE VIII.

EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The General Assembly, at its first session after the adoption of this constitution, shall, by law, establish throughout the State a thorough and efficient system of Free Public Schools, and shall provide, by taxation or otherwise, for their maintenance.

SEC. 2. The system of Public Schools, as now constituted, shall remain in force until the end of the said first session of the General Assembly, and shall then expire, except so far as adopted or continued by the General Assembly.

SEC. 3. The school fund of the State shall be kept inviolate, and appropriated only to the purposes of education.