made them hard to be come at by the very poor it was pretended they were to assist.

At the present time there is a mixed currency here; and people touch the paper part of it as if it was remarkably hot. Your most inveterate bankite will pocket the silver and hand over the note to pay his bill. Your merchant will at this moment prefer a produce draft to a bank bill, and that is equivalent to saying that he prefers the bill of a private banker whom he can trust of his own knowledge to the bill of an incorporated shaver whose only character is derived from an act of the legislature, and has at last become about as bad as it well can be.

The Argus hopes we will not consider it over ultra. No, we will not. What has generally been called ultraism has been the very place we were sure to stick in. Leggett was ultra, and we stuck closer to him than to anyone else we can remember. No. We are ultra and obstinate, and we hope to remain so; that is, we mean that the timid and conservative, as they style themselves, shall call us so. If a man means to do any good in the world he must be ultra, he must go beyond those around him, and must expect to bear sneers and to feel rubs, and he must also learn to be obstinate enough to care but little about them.

We have got somewhat tired of the common cant about ultraism. Ultraism and reform are precisely the same thing; and it is only the miserably timid, who fear every change of breeze, that fear them. We ought in this country to aim to reform, at ultraism, for years to come. The government of the country was ultra and was condemned as such by all Europe. Bonaparte was ultra in his notions of fighting and he beat all Europe by his very ultraism. Who would not be ultra in good if he could? Who would not go beyond others to do good things? This is all that ultraism means and it frightens none but the timid.

Geology was ultraism once and the whole church was afraid of it. Now it is to be learned by everyone. Astron

omy was in the same position. Everything that is good has been at some time denounced as ultra; but then, it is true, the denunciations come from the weak alone, from those of whom St. Paul says that they must be fed with milk and not with meat. They come from those who dare not believe, cannot think.

We like to see people earnest, to see them state their opinions strongly and defend them boldly. We would ten times rather argue with a bold, obstinate man than with one who will half agree with us. The latter we have no hope of, the former we may convince, and if we do we gain over a man who will fight for us as hard as he fought against us.

THE SCHOOL FUND

[June 16, 1846]

Whatever disposition may be made of the school lands, whether they are made a state fund, a county fund, or a town fund, they ought to be declared by the constitution a sacred deposit, and if by accident they should become diminished, a direct tax should at once be resorted to to make their value good.

We all know of how great value to a state is the education of the children of the whole people, and we likewise know that a liberal fund provided for such purpose is a great economy to the people at large. If knowledge is wealth to its possessor, the knowledge of a people is a still greater wealth to the state, tending not only to advance all in the race of improvement but to diminish crime and excess and to give people a resource above the mere thirst for wealth, that too often urges men to drive a state into expenditures they themselves would avoid as imprudent and useless.

For ourselves, we confess we should consider separate school systems better than one great state system with all its machinery at the capital, and with the interest removed from the people. We do not insist that a state system must be bad,

but it has some very strong objections. Among them are these. The superintendent has too much to do to oversee all the schools of the state. The whole machinery is too far removed from the people. The supervision of the common schools does not excite enough interest at home. The money is not generally funded to the best advantage. Donations are seldom made because a small sum would seem too pitiful to swell so large a fund, and none but rich, very rich men could afford to make one that would.

We are not now going to argue the question whether the whole lands ought to form one common fund for the state, or whether each section ought to be applied to the use of its own town, because we know that this must depend much upon feeling, and must probably be settled in the end by concession. We wish, however, to impress upon the people the necessity of thought upon the subject, and would suggest that, however the lands may be disposed of, either a county or town system, by division of funds, or by aggregation of them, would be preferable to a system too extended, provided that either the town or county be made liable for the funds and in case of its diminution, either by dishonesty or carelessness of officers, be forced to impose upon itself a direct tax to make up the amount. This would oblige us to appoint trustworthy officers and to take such security as should be reliable, and would ensure the safety of the fund in any event, while it might be increased in various ways, and the increase would be secured in the same manner.

We look at small school organizations as the most profitable on many accounts. The whole matter is under the immediate eye of the people and any one organized district, whether it be county or town, can be allowed to tax itself by vote as much as it chooses and make a fund ample enough for its own desires. Men who have the means can give to the fund and will see the benefits that accrue from the gift. Wherever the best organization is, that place will be held up as a model to others, and thus a strife for excellence will be engendered throughout the state that will do infinite good.

A greater interest, a greater pride will be taken by all and everyone who has the means will be anxious to do something for schools. Many, too, may seek popularity by a liberality towards this great object, and even though their motives may not always be as pure as they ought to be, still they will do much more good by such means than by the lavish expenditures often thrown away upon elections.

We look upon the future excellence of our common schools as of the greatest possible importance, and we hope all will agree with us that they should be made as excellent as our abilities will allow. The fund from the school lands is a large one itself, if it is only taken that care of that men would take of their own property. One thirty-sixth of all Wisconsin is set apart for schools, and surely if we take care of that it will form a very large fund. We all remember, though, that this same proportion has been wasted elsewhere, and we should be jealous lest a single acre of it here be thrown away. It was given for a great and holy purpose. Let it never be said that the people of Wisconsin have diverted the smallest portion of it from the object for which it was intended. That object, in our opinion, was common schools.

We hold to common schools, and common schools aloneno academies, no colleges out of this fund. It was set apart for the education of all the people-not a select few. You may have as many higher institutions of learning as you please, but let them not be paid for out of this fund. The fund is large but not too much, and you have no right to use it for anything but common schools in any event. Make the common schools as good as possible, let the sciences be introduced among them if they can afford it. Let your schoolmaster be paid as high a salary as his talents deserve. Spend your money freely, liberally upon common schools, but do not fritter it away among institutions that cannot be brought into general use. The fund was intended for schools, for schools for the people generally, or in other words for common schools, and to them let it be restricted, for to them it belongs alone and the diversion of it is dishonesty.

Begin to teach as you ought; begin at the rudiments, and when you find that the whole people have the means to obtain a good, scientific, English education, you may then raise your common schools to a higher point, introducing French, Spanish, German, and the dead languages if you choose. "But," many will exclaim, "this is impossible; ten times the fund would not do all this." Very well, then, do not divert it, let it be our common school fund, let it belong to the people, not to a few, and let it make the schools as excellent as it will, and then be sure they will keep improving until your select schools will have to give way to them and the children of the whole state will commence their educations together.

Colleges you may have-as many as you choose—but not out of our common school fund. They are not, and cannot be, of course, much benefit to the many, to the poor; and the rich can afford to institute them by their own means and in their own way. If you once see that men are well grounded in a common school education they will find the means to procure such other knowledge as they desire. Colleges are doubtless an assistance but they assist only a few, whereas common schools well digested, well taught, give to all that desire for learning that alone will teach the way to do it. The rudiments are the most difficult part, the first steps the most desirable, and it is to direct these that our efforts should be mainly used. When we have men well grounded, they can assist themselves with comparative ease.

But the constitution should see to the perfect safety of the fund in any event, taking care that all waste should be repaired by immediate tax, making the whole state liable for the integrity of the fund and directing the state on subdivision to make the districts subdivided liable in the same way. In this manner a sure fund will be provided to meet the wants of the community and to increase those wants. Increase the wants of education by increasing the desire for it, and you make men avaricious of the only property a legislature should desire to increase to excess, the riches of a well educated mind.