by his writings and labours, has much conduced to the prosperity and advancement of his country's educational system. Chiefly in consequence of his exertions a Board of Education was formed in 1847, in Boston, and though no power, except that of enforcing Returns, was given to it, there can be no doubt that the publication of those Returns would have a most beneficial effect in stimulating those few localities which might be sluggards in the work. The parents provide books, stationery, &c., in Massachusetts. The districts provide schoolhouses, furniture, apparatus, &c. The towns provide salaries for the teachers, and in accordance with the amount of population schools of superior grade are required.* Every inhabitant of Massachusetts who has any voice in public affairs is recognized in the administration and benefit of the system, and as soon as the townships have authorized territorial divisions and school districts, these, by means of their district officers, who are at once elected, can proceed to raise money for building and repairing schoolhouses, and providing libraries and other necessary apparatus. The town committee is annually chosen to superintend all the schools in the township, and it apportions school money to each district; examines and licenses teachers, bestows monthly visitations on the schools, has the regulation of certain books, and presents a written report during the year to the town;-a copy of this report being required to be sent to the Secretary of State for the Commonwealth, and * Teachers are not paid in a niggardly way in America. I find in Sir Charles Lyell's remarks, made during his second visit to that country,-"In Boston, the Master of the Latin School, where boys are fitted for college, and the Master of the High School where they are taught French, mathematics, and other branches preparatory to a mercantile career, receive two thousand four hundred dollars a year; the Governor of the State receiving only two thousand five hundred dollars. Their assistants are paid from eighteen hundred to seven hundred dollars. The masters of the Grammar Schools have salaries of fifteen hundred dollars; and the mistresses of schools in which children learn to read, receive three hundred and twenty-five dollars." furnished by him to the Board of Education, as part of the Returns which that Board is empowered to collect. The Board of Education consists of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the Conimonwealth ex-officio, and eight persons appointed by the Governor and Council. They appoint their own Secretary, and the members of the Board are reimbursed their official expenses. Subordinate to the Town Committee, there is also an elective Prudential Committee, for Districts. The legal minimum of taxation is a dollar and a quarter for each child, but the excess voluntarily raised, is sometimes so great as to raise the whole rate to six dollars and three quarters per child. The practice in New England is to appropriate to Education any surplus revenue which may be saved from political expenditure: this amount will be seen to have been in 1814, largest in the County of Hampden, while in Suffolk and Nantucket no income was thus derived. Deducting from the large attendance of scholars, (shewn in the above Table), those which were more than sixteen or less than four years of age, it is found that even the average attendance was, (in 1844) nearly one in 6.50 of the population. The State of Pennsylvania organized a school system in 1836, leaving it free to each district to arrange its own plan, but appropriating a charge out of the State revenues in such counties as should assess a local rate for the same purpose. The annexed Table shows the progress which was made by the schools thus formed; and I would wish particularly to direct the attention of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Newcastle, to the smallness of the cost per child, in these schools, including the local expenditure. I compile the table from a document which emanated from the Privy Council Office, Downing-street, 30th June, 1848.— 1835 536 32,544 1.122 Unknown. 249,400-84 397,952-01 123,004-19 The disbursement for instruction and contingencies, was, in 1836, one hundred and ninety-three thousand nine hnndred and seventy-two dollars and ninety cents, and had increased in 1846, to four hundred and eighty-six thousand four hundred and seventy-five dollars seventy-four cents. The success of the schools in Pennsylvania, is clearly shewn in the decrease of support required from the state, and the increase in the amount locally contributed. I need not, however, weary the reader with dry details of figures; let me rather quote the following nervous language of one of America's great men, Webster, who, though speaking thus in 1821, could have no cause now to retract, what he then said in praise of his country's National Instruction.—“ For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation according to his property, and we look not to the question whether he himself have, or have not children to benefit by the education for which he pays; we regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age. "We hope to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacities and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. "By general instruction, we seek so far as possible to purify the moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security, beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well-principled or moral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time, when, in the villages and farmhouses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep within unbarred doors. Knowing that our Government rests directly upon the public will, that we may preserve it, we endeavour to give a safe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed, expect |