less favored in outward circumstances, without knowing or caring to know how far their families are separated by the arbitrary distinctions which divide and distract society. With nearly equal opportunities of education in childhood and youth, the prizes of life, its best fields of usefulness, and sources of happiness will be open to all, whatever may have been their accidents of birth and fortune. From many obscure and humble homes in the city and in the country, will be called forth and trained inventive talent, productive skill, intellectual taste, and God-like benevolence, which will add to the general wealth, multiply workshops, increase the value of farms, and carry forward every moral and religious enterprise which aims to bless, purify, and elevate society.

Fifth. The influence of the annual or semi-annual examina tion of candidates for admission into the High School, will operate as a powerful and abiding stimulus to exertion throughout all the lower schools. The privileges of the High School will be held forth as the reward of exertion in the lower grade of schools; and promotion to it, based on the result of an impartial examination, will form an unobjectional standard by which the relative standing of the different schools can be ascertained, and will also indicate the studies and departments of education to which the teachers in particular schools should devote special attention. This influence upon the lower schools, upon scholars and teachers, upon those who reach, and those who do not reach the High School, will be worth more than all it costs, independent of the advantages received by its pupils.

Sixth. While the expenses of public or common schools will necessarily be increased by the establishment of a school of this class, in addition to those already supported, the aggregate expenditures for education, including public and private schools, will be diminished. Private schools of the same relative standing will be discontinued for want of patronage, while those of a higher grade, if really called for by the educational wants of the community, will be improved. A healthy competition will necessarily exist between the public and private schools of the highest grade, and the school or schools which do not come up to the highest mark, must go down in public estimation. Other things being equal, viz., school-houses, teachers, classification, and the means and appliances of instruction, the public school is always better than the private. From the uniform experience of those places where a High School has been established, it may be safely stated, that there will be an annual saving in the expenses of education to any community, equal to one half the amount paid for tuition in private schools, and, with this saving of expense, there will be a better state of education.

Seventh. The successful establishment of a High School, by improving the whole system of common schools, and interesting a larger number of families in the prosperity of the schools, will create a better public sentiment on the subject than has heretofore existed, and the schools will be regarded as the common property, the common glory, the common security of the whole community. The wealthy will feel that the small additional tax required to establish

and sustain this school, if not saved to them in the diminished tuition for the education of their own children in private schools, at home and abroad, is returned to them a hundred fold in the enterprise which it will quicken, in the increased value given to property, and in the number of families which will resort to the place where it is located, as a desirable residence, because of the facilities enjoyed for a good education. The poor will feel that, whatever may betide them, their children are born to an inheritance more valuable than lands or shops, in the free access to institutions where as good an education can be had as money can buy at home or abroad. The stranger will be invited to visit not only the institutions which public or individual benevolence has provided for the poor, the orphan, the deaf mute, and the criminal, but schools where the children and youth of the community are trained to inventive and creative habits of mind, to a practical knowledge of the fundamental principles of business, to sound moral habits, refined tastes, and respectful manners. And in what balance, it has well been asked in reference to the cost of good public schools, as compared with these advantages, shall we weigh the value of cultivated, intelligent, energetic, polished, and virtuous citizens? How much would a community be justified in paying for a physician who should discover or practice some mode of treatment through which many lives should be preserved? How much for a judge, who, in the able administration of the laws, should secure many fortunes, or rights more precious than fortunes, that might else be lost? How much for a minister of religion who should be the instrument of saving hundreds from vice and crime, and persuading them to the exertion of their best powers for the common good? How much for the ingenious inventor, who, proceeding from the first principles of science onward, should produce some improvement that should enlarge all the comforts of society, not to say a steam-engine or a magnetic telegraph? How much for the patriotic statesman, who, in difficult times, becomes the savior of his country? How much for the well-instructed and enterprising merchant who should suggest and commence the branches of business that should bring in a vast accession of wealth and strength? One such person as any of these might repay what a High School would cost for centuries. Whether, in the course of centuries, every High School would produce one such person, it would be useless to prophesy. But it is certain that it would produce many intelligent citizens, intelligent men of business, intelligent servants of the state, intelligent teachers, intelligent wives and daughters, who, in their several spheres, would repay to any community much more than they and all their associates had received. The very taxes of a town, in twenty years, will be lessened by the existence of a school which will continually have sent forth those who were so educated as to become not burdens but benefactors.

These results have been realized wherever a Public High School has been opened under circumstances favorable to the success of a private school of the same grade,-wherever a good school-house, good regulations, (for admission, attendance, studies, and books,) good teachers, and good supervision have been provided.

XVI. FREE ACADEMY AT NORWICH, CONN.

WE continue in this number, the account of the inauguration of the Free Academy at Norwich, because the liberality of the founders, and the suggestions made by the speakers on the occasion, are worthy of the attention, of all interested in the establishment and organization of schools of this class.

THE NORWICH FREE ACADEMY occupies a central and eligible site. The Grounds comprise an area of about six acres, perfectly level in front, and terminating in the rear in a beautiful and elevated woodland. The Academy building is a brick structure 87 feet in length by 77 in width, three stories high, with a projection in front of 24 by 12 feet, surmounted by a tower or observatory. The basement is dry and will finish 12 feet in the clear.

In the BASEMENT, beside the rooms for furnaces and coal, there will be two play-rooms for wet weather, each 40 by 51 feet, with a Chemical Laboratory 30 feet by 19, connected by stairs with the Philosophical Lecture room on the first floor.

On the FIRST FLOOR there are, as will be seen from the Engraving, three entrances. Two of these are appropriated to the scholars, one to each sex. They open into spacious dressing rooms 19 by 15 feet, and are supplied with wash-bowls set in marble, looking-glasses, and such other conveniences as are essential to cleanliness and comfort. The front entrance opens into a hall 12 feet in width, and extending through the entire building. On either side of this spacious hall are the Philosophical Lecture-room and the Library-each 51 feet by 34.

The Library has been fitted up in chaste and elegant style, and endowed with a fund of $5,000 by Mrs. Harriet Peck Williams, which, in honor of her father, the late Capt. Bela Peck, she denominates the PECK LIBRARY.

The Philosophical room is well furnished and a good foundation has been laid in a choice selection of apparatus, manufactured by E. S. RITCHIE, of Boston.

On the SECOND FLOOR there is a school-room, 81 feet by 51, capable of liberally accommodating 200 pupils; two recitation rooms each 19 feet by 15, and the Principal's room 28 feet by 18.

On the THIRD FLOOR the arrangement of rooms is the same as on the second. It is used at present as a hall for the public exercises of the Academy.

The building is warmed by furnaces and ample provision is made for ventilation.

The building is supplied with water by an aqueduct from a spring on the elevated ground in the rear, and is lighted by gas.

The cost of the building, furniture, and apparatus, exclusive of the

lot was about $37,000.

The architect was EVAN BURDICK, Esq., of Norwich.

The furniture was manufactured by JOSEPH L. Ross, of Boston.