5 colleges hereinafter mentioned shall so clect, the in6 come of the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, or 7 of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and so 8 upwards to the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, 9 if the colleges hereinafter named should elect as afore10 said, shall be apportioned by the secretary and treas11 urer of the Commonwealth, and paid over by the 12 said treasurer to the treasurers of Harvard, Williams, 13 and Amherst Colleges, respectively, in proportion to 14 the number of persons who shall have taken their first 15 degrees at each of the said colleges within the period 16 of five years next preceding such distribution. And 17 such apportionment shall be made, as aforesaid, at the 18 expiration of every term of five years.

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SECT. 3. The government of each college shall, 2 from year to year, when any money shall be received 3 as aforesaid, appropriate its portion of the said income, 4 in such proportions as may appear to them most for 5 the benefit of the college, to the following objects, 6 and none other, viz:-First, the reduction of the 7 general charge for instruction in the college; second, 8 the increase and maintenance of the library by the 9 purchase and binding of books; third, the purchase 10 of scientific collections of natural objects, or imita11 tions of them, and of philosophical instruments of all 12 descriptions.

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SECT. 4. The treasurer of each college shall, in 2 the month of January in each year, render an account 3 to the legislature of the amount of income he has 4 received from this fund, and in what manner it has 5 been used; showing the sum appropriated to the

6 reduction of the charge for instruction, and how the 7 same has been applied, and what reduction has been 8 made; the number of volumes purchased for the 9 library and their cost, and the amount spent in the 10 binding of books; the purchase of collections and 11 instruments, and their cost.

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SECT. 5. This act shall take effect from and after 2 its passage.

HOUSE....No. 112.

SUPPLEMENT TO HOUSE No. 112.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, April 18, 1848.

The undersigned, a minority of the Joint Standing Committee on Education, dissenting from the views reported by the majority of said committee, touching the petitions of the several colleges in the Commonwealth, for aid from the school fund, beg leave to submit their views in the following

REPORT:

The petitioners ask, that the school fund, now limited, by statute, to one million of dollars, be permitted to accumulate, till it amounts to a million and a half; and, that the extra halfmillion be appropriated, as a permanent special fund, for the benefit of the colleges now established in the Commonwealth.

In the outset, we distinctly disclaim all feelings of hostility towards the petitioners, or the institutions which they represent. We regard colleges as sustaining a highly important relation to the great work of popular education, and, in the progress of the arts and sciences, as indispensable. The wisdom of our ancestors, in establishing colleges and academies, in connection with elementary schools, and making legislative provision for

their maintenance, must commend itself to every intelligent friend of education.

And the policy hitherto pursued by the legislature of this Commonwealth, in fostering, with a liberal hand, "the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them,"-a system which has been productive of such incalculable benefit to all classes,—which has secured for Massachusetts so proud a preeminence among the states of the Union,—we hope and trust will never be abandoned.

Notwithstanding, we are opposed to granting the prayer of the petitioners, for the following considerations, viz:

1. We do not believe, with the memorialists, that the legislature has made ample provision for elementary instruction.

There are, in the Commonwealth, about thirty-five hundred school districts, and more than two hundred thousand children, between the ages of four and sixteen-four fifths of whom, at least, will receive their entire education in the district schools.

From the reports of the secretary of the Board of Education, we learn that, in 1846, not more than eighty of these schools were furnished with an artificial globe, and about the same number, with maps for common use, and that more than three hundred were without even a blackboard.

Furthermore it is matter of public notoriety, that a large portion of the district schoolhouses in this Commonwealth, are ill adapted to the purposes for which they were designed; that, in locating them, little regard seems to have been had to convenience, to health, to correct taste, or good morals; that, in their construction, much less attention has been paid to the laws of animal life, to the physical well-being of the children of the Commonwealth, than intelligent husbandmen ordinarily exercise, in providing shelter for their domestic brute animals.

But the evils resulting from comfortless, incommodious, and unhealthy schoolhouses, felt and acknowledged as it is, in almost every town in the Commonwealth, is trifling, compared with the loss sustained from want of a supply of competent teachers.

Dr. Humphrey, for many years president of Amherst College, and who has enjoyed peculiar opportunities for becoming

acquainted with the wants both of colleges and common schools, remarks :

"It cannot be concealed that our schools are suffering for want of better-qualified instructors. Very few of our teachers have been systematically educated for the profession. By far the greater number have never enjoyed the advantages of thorough professional training, at all. They have been left to educate themselves as best they could, and that mainly by the process of experience, in teaching.

"The annual reports of the school committees, from all parts of the Commonwealth, are alarmingly instructive on this subject. They complain that 'tis impossible to have good schools, for want of good teachers.

"Many who offer themselves for examination, are deficient in every thing; in spelling, in reading, in penmanship, in geography, in grammar, and in common arithmetic. The demand for competent teachers is great, and it is increasing."

We deem it unnecessary to say anything of the importance to the cause of education, in all its departments, of having well-qualified teachers for all the public schools.

Let but the same policy be adopted here as in other departments of industry, and the evils complained of will vanish. Our blacksmith, our carpenter, our tailor, must each be a workThe surveyor, the chemist, the physician, and the lawyer, must need have the reputation of being learned and skilful,

man.

or starve.

Why should we require less of those who propose to teach our children-to shape and fashion the physical, intellectual, and moral being for usefulness and happiness?

If, in the economy and progress of human society, there be one relation more sacred than another,-one avocation more responsible, more dignified,-we believe it to be that of the teacher.

Hence, the obligation, the imperative necessity, if we would secure an ample supply of qualified and faithful teachers, of making adequate provision for such, and strewing in their paths inducements to fidelity.

To the teacher of the common school is entrusted the manage