tem of common schools, and also for ten colleges, one for each of the ten districts into which the State was to be divided, and for one university for the sciences. Unfortunately for that great State, this comprehensive system of schools for the education of its people in the lower and higher branches of knowledge was not adopted at the time; and was only in part realized many years afterward through the persistent efforts of Mr. Jefferson in the founding of what is now known as the University of Virginia, and in a very inadequate provision for the support of common schools. These sagacious and farreaching views as to the necessity and extent of popular education were by no means peculiar to the eminent statesmen and scholars whose words I have quoted, as could easily be shown by liberal quotations from the writings of many of their most distinguished contemporaries. They are the deliberately expressed opinions of men by whose wisdom and foresight States were formed and a nation created, which can only be destroyed when the descendants of the founders shall forget the wisdom, and cease to practise the self-denying virtues of their fathers. The founders of our institutions clearly perceived that popular government could not rest securely on popular ignorance, and that knowledge, and not merely the rudiments of it, generally disseminated among the people, is essential to the stability of that form of government which depends for its existence on the will of the governed. Nor were these views first entertained and expressed by the founders of our Republic. They were among the rich inheritances of civil wisdom derived from the colonial period of our history, as shown, among other proofs, by the celebrated ordinance passed in the year 1647, by the general court of the Massachusetts Colony, and which is too familiar to need quotation before this well-informed assembly. This ordinance, it will be remembered, was founded on the assumed right of the State to require that schools shall be supported by public taxation, wherein the youth of the State, whether they be the sons of tax-paying or non-tax-paying parents, may be educated in the higher branches of learning, and fitted to pursue still further their studies in the university. And it is well-known history, that at a date earlier than that of the ordinance to which reference has just been made, the colonial legislature gave to Harvard University five hundred pounds, which was only the first of a series of benefactions that venerable institution has received from the State, and which, if her necessities require it, and her devotion to the cause of sound learning and civil wisdom render her deserving of the public confidence, should be repeated as new exigencies arise; not, indeed, primarily or ultimately for her special benefit, but that the light of all science and art and literature may be shed abroad over her wide constituency. And this public munificence should not be confined to this, but extended to other similar institutions, so that the latest and best results of study, investigation, and discovery in every department of knowledge shall be brought within the reach of all, and no longer remain the peculiar possession of a few. In the Constitution of Massachusetts, adopted nearly one hundred years ago, will be found this declaration of principles: "Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth, to cherish the interests. of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, -especially the university at Cambridge,-public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country." Substantially the same declaration may be found in the Constitution of New Hampshire, and I know not in how many other of the State constitutions. I may have occasion, in a later stage of this discussion, to refer again to these constitutional declarations. I only desire now, in passing, to remind you that these are not the opinions of an accidental and temporary majority of a sect or party, but are rather the solemnly-expressed and long-cherished principles of a whole people; and also to observe, that the duty on the part of the State to promote the cause of education is placed on the same footing precisely as that of promoting trade, commerce, and manufactures. And when you recall how much has been done by the State and General Governments to foster and advance these material interests, you will be furnished with a standard by which to measure the extent to which the State may properly go in the support of its institutions of learning. Indeed, in no other way can the State so certainly promote trade, commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, as by bringing within the reach of those, who are to engage in these great industries, the means of a liberal education. I do not use the term liberal, in this connection, in any technical or narrow sense. I mean an education which shall not only enable its possessor to perform with skill the manual exercises of his trade or vocation, but which shall also enable him to comprehend and fully under stand the laws and principles of that trade or vocation, and all related subjects. Massachusetts at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present, made liberal grants of her public lands, situated in what was then the district of Maine, to numerous academies established in nearly every county of the State; and from time to time the State has made grants of money to Harvard, as I have already stated, and also to other colleges in the Commonwealth; and, within the last twenty years, has made repeated appropriations to that department of Harvard University which was created and presided over by the peerless Agassiz. A liberal grant of land by the State was also made by the State to the School of Technology, in Boston; and within the last decade a grant of $50,000 from the State treasury was made to the School of Industrial Science, in the city of Worcester, a school, allow me to say, which, though recently founded, has already sent forth several classes of young men competent to conduct with intelligence and skill almost any of the numerous branches of industry upon which the wealth and material prosperity of the State so largely depend; so that the State, I do not mean the State treasury, but the State in a better sense, -has received more than an equivalent for its grant of money. In addition to the evidence contained in the laws and constitutions of the States, from which I have made large extracts, but now pass without reading, to show that it has been the prevailing and settled American doctrine and policy to use the public funds for the support of schools of the higher as well as of the lower grades, the fact may be stated, that from the passage of the celebrated ordinance of 1787 to the present time, Con gress has granted and reserved millions of acres of the This imperfect review of the Colonial and of the Federal and State legislation during the entire period of our constitutional history, including, especially, the wise provisions found in the constitutions of most of the States, establishes beyond controversy the fact, that the people of this country have from the beginning believed, and acted upon the belief, that it is both the right and duty of the State to provide funds for the endowment and support of schools, of the higher as well of the lower orders. And this policy has been steadily pursued with the clear understanding, that although the higher institutions thus endowed were open to all, yet that but comparatively few would ever enter their halls or derive direct personal benefit from them. The founders of these States,-the far-seeing authors of our early institutions,-did not seek to adapt their plans to the narrow wants and necessities merely of their own day and generation; they built for all time, and hoped the republic they were founding would be perpetual; and therefore founded it upon the rock of unchanging principle, and not upon the shifting sands of a tempo h |