Would not the only

town to be assembled before this tribunal. question which any one would dare to propound, be, in what manner the appropriation of the town should be distributed to produce the greatest amount of good; and, as far as possible, to dispense that good with an impartial hand, among the rising generation? What plea would be presented, or could, for a moment, be entertained, why some fifty or one hundred of these children, from the mere circumstance of local residence, or from any chance or accident whatever, should be selected for the enjoyment of double or three-fold the advantages of any other group of fifty or one hundred? To the question, for whose good is the money to be expended, is not the answer clear?for the good of the children, for the good of the community, for the good of mankind. Children are not educated for themselves alone, nor for their parents alone; but also for the State, for the country and the world. No greater calamity can befal us, than that our children should grow up without that knowledge and cultivation which shall prepare them to become good fathers, mothers, neighbors, citizens, men. It is embodied in all our political creeds, that the summit of social happiness can never be reached except under republican constitutions; and no chimera more absurd ever entered the brain of the wildest dreamer, than that republican constitutions can long exist without intelligence and morality. We believe that every man has a natural right to the rewards of his own industry and talent. But the right of property cannot be upheld without just laws; and just laws can be sustained only on the basis of a people's knowledge and virtue. Expend our means for the training of a hundred good men, at the same time allowing one bad associate to grow up amongst the number, and that one bad man will punish our improvidence, by jeoparding the welfare of all the rest. One bad man can destroy more worldly good than a hundred can create or replace. One can scatter moral infections that no arts of spiritual healing can wholly neutralize. All the powers of the mightiest nation can never prevent bad men from doing wrong. The only way to diminish the amount of wrong in the world, is to diminish the number of bad men. I conclude, therefore, that every philanthropic and Christian

view which we can take of the question,-how shall our educational resources be distributed ?-points to a distribution of them, which shall afford, as nearly as possible, an equality of advantages for all the districts in the town. If districts differ greatly in point of wealth, why should the tax-money received from each, be handed back to it as soon as collected? What relation has the number of families, or the number of ratable polls, or the number of persons over twenty-one years of age, or the number of houses in a district, to the true question;-how can all the children be best developed and replenished in intellect, best purified and refined in taste and sentiment, best principled and impassioned in morals? So of an equal distribution between unequal districts. Why would it be more absurd to pay back to each individual, the amount of school tax received from him, than to return to each school district, the amount received from its inhabitants. On no one of these principles does the town support its poor, or erect its bridges, or repair its roads. The highways of the county would present a remarkable spectacle, if the tax for their support which each man pays, were to be expended upon the portion of the road passing through his lands or by his mansion, so that the goodness or badness of our highways should be an index of the wealth or poverty of each man, along whose farm or by whose doors they lie. Yet this would not be a stranger spectacle to the natural eye than it is to the moral, to see one district in a town with almost a redundancy of educational means,-a fine schoolhouse, competent teachers, libraries, apparatus, &c., while another district in the same town, in point of educational resources, is kept on the list of paupers or beggars. Is it not just cause of alarm, then, that the preceding schedule exhibits so many districts whose school money amounts only to $20, or $10, and in some instances, only to $8?

But there is no necessary connection between an equality of privileges, and an equal distribution of the school money, per capita, amongst all children between the ages of 4 and 16 years. There are many reasons why the problem of distribution is more complicated than this. Some schools labor under the disadvantage of being too large; others, of being too small.

The Legislature, by providing that every school, having more than fifty scholars, shall employ an assistant teacher, (unless the district passes an express vote to the contrary,) has intimated its opinion that fifty children are as many as one teacher can well govern and instruct. Universal experience ratifies this opinion. For schools, therefore, consisting of more than fifty children, there should be some equivalent, either in the length of the time, or in the superior qualifications of the teacher, to compensate for the disadvantage of numbers. But a school may be too small as well as too large; and hence may suffer from the want of that natural stimulus and excitement which all children feel when brought together. There should be a compensation for this class of schools also;—usually, however, if not always, this object can be secured in the manner to be noticed below. In some districts, the population is very sparse, the roads bad, and subject to obstructions in the winter from snow, and a majority of the children have a great distance to travel. A contiguous district may have an equal number of scholars, but be compactly situated, and its school always easy of access. In such a case, special interference should compensate for natural disadvantages. In regard to two districts, equal in the number of scholars,-in one, most of the scholars may be large, rendering it advisable to employ a male teacher; in the other, the children may be small, so that a female shall be preferable. Are not these circumstances, also, a fair subject for consideration in making the apportionment? Indeed, wherever the condition of a district is such as to render it expedient to employ a female teacher, that circumstance may well be taken into view. And after all, it will not be advisable to change the rule of apportionment, every year, in order to equalize slight differences; for the evil of a perpetual change may outweigh the evils it would remedy. Only one case occurs to me, where but half or less than half of the money which an impartial tribunal would otherwise award to a district, on the principles above stated, should be allowed to it. I mean a case where two or more districts, which can be united and ought to be united, refuse to join. In such a case, let them suffer the weakness that comes from folly, until they will practise the wisdom that confers strength.

POWER OF TOWNS TO RAISE MONEY FOR SCHOOLS.

A topic not wholly unallied to the preceding, is, the legal power of towns to raise money for the support of schools. Discussions respecting the apportionment of money among districts, and suggestions for increasing the usefulness of our schools, would be nugatory, if towns could not raise money for the purpose. It would be in vain, also, that the pervading spirit of all our institutions should demand a thorough, generous, mind-expanding education for all our people, if there were no body-politic authorized by law to make the requisite pecuniary grants. This raises the direct question,-to what extent our municipal corporations may go, in granting money for the support of schools. This question is still debated; and as, in several instances, it has seriously interfered with the appropriation of moneys, which otherwise would have been unhesitatingly granted, it may not be amiss to consider some of the points on which the issue must be adjudicated.

It is admitted, by all parties, however, that the law requires, (and of course authorizes,) every town, to maintain schools of a certain aggregate length, which are to be kept by teachers having certain prescribed qualifications; and that all towns, without exception, falling below this aggregate in the length of its schools, and this prescribed grade in the qualifications of its teachers, become criminally responsible to the judicial tribunals of the State. But the question remains, whether any town may go beyond the exact requisitions of the law. Here, one party maintains that the minimum amount is also the maximum ;—that is, when the law requires a town to maintain schools, for such or such a length of time, it impliedly prohibits the town from maintaining schools for a longer period. The argument restricts the legal power to the legal duty; so that when the duty is performed the power is exhausted. It is said that towns have no discretion, as to the amount of their grants; but only as to the mode of expending the limited sum they are authorized to raise.

For instance, the law requires that every town in the Com

monwealth, however low its valuation, or few its numbers, shall keep, each year, one school for six months, or two or more schools, for terms of time, that shall together be equivalent to six months. If the number of families or householders in the town amounts to one hundred, then one school shall be kept for twelve months, or two or more schools, for terms that together shall be equivalent to twelve months. As the number of inhabitants increases, the required length of the school or schools, also increases. Now the point maintained is, that when towns have supported schools, for the prescribed period, their authority is exhausted. Being corporate bodies, incapable of originating powers, but deriving whatever powers they possess, from the law, when that is done which the law commands to be done, both the power and the obligation come to an end.

The same view is sometimes taken in regard to the studies or branches, which may be legally taught in our schools. Respecting the lowest grade of schools known to the law, the statute declares that they shall be kept by teachers of competent ability and good morals, for the instruction of children in orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, arithmetic and good behavior. On the same ground as before, it is argued, that these are the only branches which can legally be taught in this grade of schools;-that composition, rhetoric, logic, book-keeping, the elements of natural philosophy, the history of the world, or even that of our own country, &c., &c., are not merely unprovided for, in our common district schools, but that their introduction is impliedly forbidden. According to the same view, the employment of a teacher, of the most high and varied attainments, provided a greater compensation be given him, on account of his superior competency, would also be illegal. Such is the argument, on the one side, as far as I have been able to learn and to understand it, on the subject of a town's power to grant money for schools.

On the other side, it is maintained that the length of schools and the range of studies prescribed by the statute, are the minimum but not the maximum;-that while every town is obliged to do so much, no town is prohibited from doing more;-and