more than to any single cause, may be ascribed the success of our plan, and the failure of theirs.*

There is a rapid increase of the children requiring instruction, while the augmentation of the school fund is gradual. The annual apportionment from the state treasury amounts only to 20 cents to each child, between 5 and 16, in the state. The apportionment from the school fund in Connecticut, gives about 85 cents to each child within the enumerated class. If the mere distribution of money from a state fund, would produce good schools, it might be inferred that those in Connecticut were much superior to our own. But even there, with an ample fund, there is much complaint in regard to the low state of common school education. †

Our system is well calculated to awaken the attention of all the inhabitants to the concerns of the district school. The power given to district meetings to levy a tax, to a limited extent, upon the property of the district, excites a direct interest with all the taxable inhabitants to attend the district meetings, whether they have children requiring school accommodations or not. The wealthy are thus prompted to act as trustees and to watch over the concerns of the district,

The "Pennsylvania Society for the promotion of public schools," remark upon the Pennsylvania system as follows: "We have reserved, hitherto, our opinion of the great and radical defect, the incurable evil which is inherent in the school system of Pennsylvania, a system which is in opposition to the most sensitive and the strongest moral feelings of our citizens. The feelings of the poorer classes will not permit them to enrol themselves as paupers, in order that their children may receive their education from the charity of the public."

Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, in his Discourse on Popular Education, delivered at Princeton, New-Jersey, states, that " Virginia and New-York, almost at the same moment, provided and set apart a permanent fund' for primary or common schools. Forty-five thousand dollars is annually apportioned in Virginia to the counties, and the portion for each county is placed at the disposal of the commissioners annually appointed by their repective courts, and charged with the obligation of applying the sum received by each, to the education, by such schools as may be found to exist, of the children of those parents who are unable to pay for their instruction. The entire number of children benefitted by the application of the fund, during certain portions of the last year, are but about ten thousand, being less than a moiety of the total number reported to be in a condition to require for their education public aid." Pages 52 and 57.

A very intelligent citizen of Connecticut, in giving his views of the school system of that state, remarks as follows:-"Requiring of the recipients of this public bounty nothing more than that it be expended according to the provisions of the law, is an obvious defect in this system. In this point, the policy adopted in the state of New-York is deserving of imitation. A sum proportioned to the amount received from the state, ought to be advanced for the same objects, by all to whom it is distributed, excepting the indigent. Such a proposition would cause a valuable augmentation of the revenues of teachers, and in that way command services of a higher character. But I should not consider that as its highest excellence. We know, from common and universal experience, that little interest is felt in that which demands neither expense nor attention. Our country is affluent, and pecuniary means may be commanded for whatever we have the will to perform. Few, comparatively, are so indigent as to need charitable aid in the education of their children. A public fund for the instruction of youth in common schools, is of no comparative worth as a means of relieving want. An higher value would consist in its being made an instrument for exciting general exertion for the attainment of that important end. In proportion as it excites and fosters a salutary zeal, it is a public blessing. It may have, on any other principle of application. a contrary tendency and become worse than useless. It may be justly questioned whether the school fund has been of any use in Connecticut. It has furnished a supply where there was no deficiency. Content with the ancient standard of school instruction, the people have permitted the expense of sustaining it to be taken off their hands, and have aimed at nothing higher. They expended about an equal sum before the school fund existed. They would willingly pay seventy thousand dollars more, if made a condition of receiving the state bounty, and thus the amount would be doubled, for an object in which they would then feel they had some concern.”

in order to see that its affairs are conducted with care and economy; and much of the intelligence of the district is put in requisition by the peculiarity of our plan, which might be wholly lost to the districts if the whole expense of the tuition was provided by a state fund.

It is perhaps not easy to form a satisfactory opinion as to the mode of providing means for the support of common schools which is the best calculated to diffuse instruction among the great mass of the people. Persons who have given much reflection to this subject are divided in their opinions, whether the greatest good is accomplished by having the state fund provide for the whole expense-by having the inhabitants taxed for the whole expense-or by having the state fund contribute a share, and the inhabitants taxed for the residue.

In Connecticut, the state provides about the amount which is expended for teachers' wages in most of the common schools. In Massachusetts, Maine, New-Hampshire and Vermont, the expense of the schools is paid by a tax upon the inhabitants. In New-York there is a combination of the two systems referred to-the state providing a part, and the inhabitants, by tax, another part. Under the operation of these various systems, in different states, it is believed that there is no very essential difference in the grade of the great mass of the common schools. One very competent judge, in regard to such matters, has expressed a decided opinion in favor of the system in Maine, where there is no state fund, and where each town is required to raise by tax a sum for schools equal to 40 cents for each person enumerated in the census. Another eminent individual has pronounced that system the best where a state fund is provided as an inducement to the inhabitants to organize districts, and which at the same time requires such a local tax as will command the attention of the inhabitants, and excite an interest in the district operations.*

The sums of money expended upon the common schools, and the general results, would not be essentially different under the sys

*Of the three modes of providing for popular instruction-that in which the scholars pay every thing and the public nothing-that in which the public pays every thing and the scholars nothing and that in which the burden is shared by both; the exposition given by Dr. Chalmers, in the "Considerations on the System of Parochial Schools in Scotland," in favor of the last, appears to us to be unanswerable. When people know that they can get their instruction for nothing, they care very little about it, and are so apt to wait till the proper period for education be gone, without seeking it at all, that we perfectly agree with this most accurate observer of the habits of his countrymen, that "one consequence of charity schools with us, has been a diminution in the quantity of education."

[Edinburgh Review, No. 91.]

tem adopted in Maine, from what they are under our own.

According to the ratio of taxation adopted in Maine, the county of Dutchess would pay a school tax assessed upon the several towns, of 20,370 dollars; under our system the money expended for the common schools of that county, including 2,980 dollars received from the state treasury, amounts to 20,862 dollars: Ontario would be taxed for schools, according to the Maine system, 16,148 dollars, and according to our system, the money expended in that county for the support of schools, amounts to 16,936 dollars.

These counties have a dense population, are wealthy, have no local funds, and are selected as fair specimens for illustration; the one being in the eastern and the other in the western section of the state.*

It has been urged, that the amount distributed from our fund is too small, and that an increase of the fund would of itself raise the standard of the common schools; but an increase of the school monies would be much more likely to decrease the contributions of individuals, than to elevate the standard of the common schools. If a majority of the trustees or inhabitants of a district have fixed their minds upon 10 dollars, as the monthly wages which ought to be paid to a teacher, and if that district receives 30 dollars, it is not improbable that they would employ their teacher for 3 months, which answers the requirements of the statute, and pay him the 30 dollars; and thus their whole duty in relation to the school for that year is discharged. Having fixed their standard at 10 dollars per month for the teacher, if they only receive 15 dollars from the public fund, they would employ the same teacher, and pay the additional 15 dollars out of their own pockets. When the inhabitants of that district should become satisfied that it was for the interest of their children to employ a well qualified teacher for the whole year, at 25 dollars, they would employ such teacher whether the state should pay one-half or one-tenth of the amount.

The following comparative view shows the amount paid for teachers' wages, including the sum received from the state, under our system; as well as the sum which the same counties would pay by raising an amount equal to 40 cents for each person, according to the system in Maine. The counties are selected from each of the 8 Senate districts in the state.

Our system of common school instruction is founded upon the principle that the state, or the revenue of the school fund, will pay only a share of the expense, and that at least an equal share, as the condition of receiving the state fund, shall be assessed upon the property of the town. In addition to all this, and as a necessary pre-requisite to a participation in the public money, the inhabitants of each district are required to tax themselves for building a schoolhouse and furnishing it with the necessary fuel and appendages.

In order to have a full view of the operations of our system, the trustees of school districts have been required, for the last three years, to return the amount paid for teachers' wages in each district, over and above the sum received from the state treasury, from the town tax, and from the local school fund. Seven hundred and forty-two towns and wards have made returns, which show a total amount paid by the patrons of the common schools, besides the public money received by the school districts, of 346,807 dollars; which, added to the public money, makes an aggregate of 586,520 dollars, paid for teachers' wages alone, in the common schools of the state.

Thus it will be seen, that where the state, or the revenue of the school fund, pays one dollar for teachers' wages, the inhabitant of the town, by a tax on his own property, pays $1.25 cents, and by voluntary contribution in his district, $3.46 cents, for the same object; and the local fund amounts to an average of 15 cents more.

The foregoing results are given from actual returns, and may be relied upon. They exhibit only the sum paid for teachers' wages, which is less than half the expense incurred for supporting the common schools, as will be seen by the following estimates.

The average between the whole number of districts, and those which have made returns, deducting 22 for New-York, gives 8,824; this number of school-houses, at an average price of 200 dollars each, would show a capital of 1,764,800 dollars; add to this the cost of the school-houses and their appendages in New-York, 163,436 dollars, and it gives a total of 1,928,236 dollars, vested in school-houses, which at an interest of six per cent would be.

....

$115,694 00

Amount brought forward,..

Amount of public money paid for teachers' wa

ges,

Amount paid in the districts for teachers' wages,

....

besides public money, Estimating in same ratio for 43 towns which have not returned amount over and above public money,

$453,871 00

239,713 00

346,807 00

21,308 00

$1,061,699 00

showing a total amount of one million and sixty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-nine dollars, expended annually for the support of the common schools of the state.

The preceding estimates show that the revenue of the school fund (that is, the amount derived from the State treasury) pays less than one-tenth of the annual expenditures for the support of the common schools; another tenth is raised by a tax upon the property of the towns respectively; and the two-tenths thus made up, (being the item of 239,713 dollars in the foregoing statement,) constitutes what is called the school money, and is the sum received by the commissioners of the towns, for distribution among the several districts. Something less than two-tenths (for school-houses and fuel) is raised by a tax upon the property of the district, in pursuance of a vote of the inhabitants thereof; and the residue, nearly six-tenths, or 617,822 dollars, is paid voluntarily by the parents and guardians of the scholars, for books, and for the balance of their school bills, after the public money has been applied.

The Superintendent begs leave to refer to the last annual report, (document No. 31,) for an abstract of the various kinds of books used in the common schools. It is desirable that the schools should be supplied with elementary books adapted to the capacities of children, and accurate in regard to all the subjects of which they treat. It has been urged, that uniformity in the books used in the schools ought to prevail, and applications have frequently been made to the Legislature, to adopt by statute, particular books for the use of the common schools. The committee on literature in the Assembly, last year, investigated this matter, and the chairman made a report, (document 431, of 1830,) to which the attention of the Legislature is respectfully referred.