than common intelligence, and capable of estimating, and in fact rightly appreciating the value of higher culture, and in a State the economy of whose civil government and the general prosperity of whose citizens give it ample ability to make munificent endowments for literary purposes if it were so inclined, these two institutions claiming and receiving a comparatively high character for literary excellence have struggled along side by side year after year, in a never ending effort to prolong existence by constant appeals at one time to the local pride and liberality of citizens of our own State, and at another to the generosity of friends of education resident elsewhere. And during all this time more native Vermonters have graduated from Dartmouth and Cambridge, and Amherst, and Williams, and Yale, and Union, than from both these institutions together.

The literary strength and the pecuniary and numerical weakness of these two colleges, have for many years fastened the attention and awakened the serious consideration of friends of education throughout the State; and from personal intercourse with many of the wisest friends of higher culture throughout our State, I well know that for several years a conviction has been gaining strength continually, of the necessity of a return to the original educational policy of the State by a consolidation of the University of Vermont and Middlebury College.

If this by any means could be accomplished a decided change for the better in various respects would immediately follow.

1st. The single institution that would result from such consolidation would become an object of State pride and concentre upon itself a general interest of much wider and more uniform prevalence and of far greater intensity than has ever been granted to the existing colleges.

2d. Being the sole institution of a higher character in the State, and having gathered about it a more general and intense interest, it would afford an opportunity for the exercise of legislative patronage, which has been hitherto prevented by the existence of a local prejudice and partisan hostility which has induced liberal minded legislators rather to deny all legislative aid for educational purposes than to grant to either of two institutions pecuniary assistance which could not be well claimed or expected for both.

Legislative aid would be claimed, and it would be granted, and before the lapse of many years a single literary instution would receive endowments that would plant it upon a firm and substantial pecuniary basis, and thus with increasing independence it would exert a wider and stronger influence for good.

3d. The fountains of private and individual munificence which have been closed to a great extent by the indisposition to choose between two institutions of equal excellence by granting to either pecuniary assistance which could not be granted to both, and the bestowal of which upon either would excite the jealousy and hostility

of the other; these fountains would be opened and liberal minded men of opulence and generosity by ample contribution of their means to the endowment of the one State University, would here, as in other States has been done, connect their names with the history of high mental and moral culture.

4th. Thus gathering strength and power from various sources and thereby becoming more efficient and more worthy of support, the one State University would attract to itself hundreds of young men who in the absence of any especial predilection for either of two rival colleges now seek in colleges of other States a culture no better than would be given here.

I have felt constrained from a sense of duty to introduce this matter in the present report for various, and as I think sufficient reasons. 1st. As I have stated, I personally know, that much of anxious thought has been given to this matter of the consolidation of these institutions by many earnest friends and graduates of both institutions in all parts of the State, who have expressed to me a desire that the subject should in some way be brought prominently before the public mind.

2nd. Under existing circumstances in our State, the consolidation of these two colleges almost necessarily involves the selection of either Middlebury or Burlington, as the site of the institution resulting from such consolidation.

And the recent acceptation by this State of the Congressional grant of lands for the establishment of an Agricultural College, scems to afford a better opportunity than may ever occur again to make compensation in some degree for the loss which may result by the nonselection of either of these two towns as the site for the location of the consolidated college, by tendering to it, its selection as a site for the establishment of the proposed Agricultural College, perhaps in connection with that of a State Normal school.

3rd. The suggestion of this matter seemed indispensibly necessary to the completion of the discussion of the importance of a more general adoption of graded schools.

The necessity for general intelligence and virtue is the impregnable basis upon which every system of State educational institutions

rests.

But if such necessity be admitted, and intelligence to even a slight degree be indispensable to the prosperity of the State, who shall say when and where the necessity for further culture ceases, or precisely to what extent it is expedient and desirable that the culture provided by the State through the establishment of educational institutions, shall proceed.

The same inexorable logic which fully vindicates both the prosperity and necessity of the establishment and support of a common school of the lowest grade, to be supported by a general taxation, is amply sufficient to warrant by the same reasoning the indefinite exten

sion of the scope and reach of the culture that may and of right ought to be thus freely given by every republican commonwealth to each and all of its children irrespective of their circumstances or social condition

The educational institutions of the city of New York furnish the most beautiful exemplification of the beneficent operation of liberalized and christianized republican institutions that ever existed. There through its Ward schools, its Grammar schools, and its noble Free Academy, all supported by general taxation, and all equally open to every child of every class and every condition, the son of the millionaire and the son of the washerwoman, side by side and hand in hand, without any distinction except such as may arise from a difference of merit, may and do proceed from the primary school, through all the various intervening grades, finally to step from the portals of the Free Academy, having there received every advantage afforded by the highest collegiate institutions in the land, fully prepared mentally and morally to act well their part in the great drama of life, by the faithful discharge of all the difficult duties of American citizenship.

A consideration of the policy of a more general adoption of graded schools, has naturally and almost necessarily led to a discussion of the expediency and desirability of a solidification of the higher educational interests of the State. Could these two measures be accomplished, and all her educational institutions be placed upon the same basis, the unity and beauty of the original design for the thorough education of the people of the State would be restored, and our noble State would have a complete educational system, whose rod of power by smiting the rocky obstacles that impede and obstruct the upward march of the coming generations, should unseal the very fountains of knowledge and proffer a participation in the healing and purifying influences of their flowing waters, without money and without price, to every son of woman, regardless of his condition or circumstances, who might truly thirst therefor.

Respectfully submitted,

J. S. ADAMS, Secretary.

MODIFICATIONS OF LAW RECOMMENDED.

I recommend to your Hon. Board that an effort be made to procure the following modifications of existing laws:

1st. A restoration of the clause by which, in the pre-existing law, it was provided that the Prudential Committee of Union Districts "shall have all the powers and discharge all the duties in relation to “said school, and the school house of said district, as are prescribed "to other Prudential Committees in relation to the school and schook "houses in their respective districts."

2nd. A restoration of the provisions of previous law, in regard to making a list of the children resident in each district, on the first of January.

3d. A restoration of the provision of previous law, by which an amount not exceeding thirty dollars, was appropriated for assistance in each of the Teachers' Institutes.

4th. The enactment of law by means of which the Town Superintendent of schools, on revoking the certificate of a teacher, shall be required to file in the town clerk's office a written statement of the reasons for such revocation.

5th. The enactment of law by which district clerks may charge to their districts a reasonable sum for their labor in the procurement of statistics pursuant to law.

6th. The enactment of law by which it shall be made unlawful to pay any compensation to a teacher for his services as such, who fails to keep the records required by law to be kept in the school register of his school.

7th. The enactment of law by which power shall be given to towns, so electing to do, to abolish all district organizations within their bounds, take possession of and account for all district property, pay all district debts, and in their municipal capacity assume all ordinary functions and perform all ordinary duties of districts.

J. S. ADAMS, Secretary.

APPENDIX.

COMMON SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL LAWS.