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 which the annual or semi-annual examination 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 com mon 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.

The Principal of the Latin High School of Boston, in a letter written 1846, says,

"There is no institution so truly republican as such a school as this. While we, the present teachers, were undergraduates of the school, the rich sent their sons to the school because it was the best that could be found. They ascertained that it was not a source of contamination, but that their boys learned here to compare themselves with others, and to feel the necessity of something more that mere wealth to gain consideration. At that time, poor men sent their sons hither because they knew that they here would get that education which they could afford to give them in no other way. They gained too by intercourse with their wealthier mates a polish of exterior manners, and an intellectual turn of mind which their friends could appreciate and perceive, although they could not tell what it was that had been acquired. Oftentimes also the poor boy would take the lead of his more pampered classmate, and take the honors of the school.

In a class lately belonging to the school were two boys, one the son of a man of extreme wealth, whose property cannot be less than $500,000; and the other the son of an Irish laborer employed by the city at a dollar a day to sweep the streets. The latter boy was the better scholar."

The Principal of the English High School in a letter writes,"The school under my charge is pricipally composed of what are called the middling classes of our city. At present, about one third of my pupils are sons of merchants; the remaining two thirds are sons of professional men, mechanics and others. Some of our best scholars are sons of coopers, lamplighters, and day laborers. A few years ago, he who ranked, the last year of his course, as our third scholar, was the son of a lamplighter, and worked three nights per week, during his whole course, to save his father the expense of books, &c., while at school. This year my second (if not the first,) scholar, is a cooper's We have several sons of clergymen of distinction and lawyers of eminence. Indeed, the school is a perfect example of the poor and the rich, meeting on common ground and on terms quite democratic.

son.

The Principal of the High School for girls in Newburyport, writes, "The Female High School was established by the town of Newburyport nearly three years since, under great opposition. It was the desire of its principal advocates to make it such a school, in respect to the course of instruction, and facilities for acquiring knowledge, and laying the foundation for usefulness, as should so successfully compete with our best private schools, as to supersede their necessity."

"A few days after we were organized, a gentleman came into the schoolroom to make some inquiries respecting the classes of society most fully represented amongst us. I was totally unable to give him the desired information, and judging from the appearance of the individuals of my charge, I could form no idea as to who were the children of poor parents, or of those in better circumstances. I mentioned the names of the parents of several, which I had just taken, and, amongst others, of two young ladies of seventeen or eighteen years of age, who, at that moment, it being recess, were walking down the room, with their arms closely entwined about each other's necks. The first of the two,' said the gentleman, 'is a daughter of one of our first merchants, the other has a father worse than none, who obtains a livelihood from one of the lowest and most questionable occupations, and is himself most degraded' These two young ladies were classmates for more than two years, and very nearly equal in scholarship. The friendship they have formed, I am confident no circumstances of station in life can ever impair.

"We have had in our number many from the best families, in all respects, in the place. They sit side by side, they recite, and they associate most freely with those of the humblest parentage, whose widowed mothers, perhaps, toil day after day, at a wash-tub, without fear of contamination, or, as I honestly believe, a thought of the differences which exist. I have, at present, both extremes under my charge-the child of affluence and the child of low parentage and deep poverty. As my arrangements of pupils in divisions, &c. are, most of them, alphabetical, it often happens that the two extremes are brought together. This never causes a murmur, or look of dislike.

A member of the School Committee of Worcester, Mass., writes: "Our High School is exceedingly popular with all classes, and in the school. rooms and on the play-grounds, the children of the richest and poorest mingle with perfect equality. No assumption,―no jealousy are seen among them. 1 have been charmed with this republican and Christian character of the school. I have seen the children of parents whose wealth was estimated by hundreds of thousands, in the same school-room with children (and those last among the best scholars of their class) whose parents have been assisted year after year by individual charity. The manners, habits, and moral sentiments of this school are as pure and high as in any academy, or female seminary of the same grade in the commonwealth.

"To the improvements of our public schools, which has been going steadily forward since 1825, does this town owe more of its prosperity, its large acces-. sion of families from abroad, especially of industrious and skillful mechanics, than to all other causes combined. As a mere investment of capital, men of wealth everywhere cannot do better with a portion of their property than to build elegant and attractive school-houses, and open in them free schools of the highest order of instruction. They will then see gathering around them men, it may be, of small means, but of practical skill, and moral and industrious habits; that class of families who feel that one of the great ends of life is to educate their children' well."

A correspondent from Brattleboro', Vt., writes:

"In the same school-room, seated side by side, according to age and attainments, are eighty children, representing all classes and conditions in society. The lad or miss, whose father pays a school tax of thirty-five dollars, by the side of another whose expense of instruction is five cents per annum. They play cordially and happily on the same grounds, and pursue the same studiesthe former frequently incited by the native superiority and practical good sense of the latter. While the contact corrects the factitious gentility and false ideas of superiority in the one, it encourages cleanliness and good breeding in the other."

The history of the High School in Providence is the history of almost every similar institution.

It

"The High School was the only feature of our system which encountered much opposition. When first proposed, its bearings on the schools below, and in various ways on the cause of education in the city, was not clearly seen. was opposed because it was "aristocratic," "because it was unconstitutional to tax property for a city college," "because it would educate children above working for their support," "because a poor boy or girl would never be seen in it"-and for all such contradictory reasons. Before it became a part of the system, the question of its adoption, or rejection, was submitted directly to the people, who passed in its favor by a vote of two thirds of all the legal voters of the city. Even after this expression of popular vote in its favor, and after the building for its accommodation was erected, there was a considerable minority who circulated a petition to the City Council against its going into operation. But the school was opened, and now it would be as easy to strike out the whole or any other feature of the system as this. Its influence in giving stimulus and steadiness to the workings of the lower grade of schools,—in giving thoroughness and expansion to the whole course of instruction,-in assisting to train teachers for our city and country schools,-and in bringing together the older and more advanced pupils, of either sex, from families of every profession, occupation and location in the city, many of whom, but for the opportunities of this school, would enter on the business and duties of life with an imperfect education-has demonstrated its own usefulness as a part of the system, and has converted its opponents into friends."

Testimony of the same character might be adduced from Phila delphia, Lowell, New Orleans, and every place where a school of this grade has been established.

The growth and influence of a Public High School, when liberally sustained, is admirably illustrated in the history of the Central High School of Philadelphia.

25

REACTIONARY LEGISLATION OF 1842.

The agitation in Hartford, from 1839 to 1842, of the subject of a graded system of public schools, either by the union of the three City Districts, as provided for in the Act of 1839, and the Revised School Law of 1841, or by a School of a higher grade than the District Schools for the more advanced pupils of the First School Society, as was provided for in the Act of 1798, modified in the Act of 1839 and stood in the first section of the Act concerning Schools in 1841, was unfortunate in its immediate influence on the general movement, and contributed to the repeal not only of the sections by which High Schools could be made part of the system of Society or District schools, but to the overthrow of the Board of Commissioners of Education. The same arch demagogue (John M. Niles), who dragged even the suggestion in 1838, which did not become part of the law, of paying for the services of School Visitors, always onerous, if faithfully performed, on a class of men the least able to bear it, into the party discussions of that year, and who attacked every year any State supervision of this great public interest, took a conspicuous part in opposing the union of the City Districts in 1841-2; and in circulating a petition to the Legislature, drafted by himself, for a repeal not only of all the sections relating to a school which should teach any thing beyond reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and geography, but provided for an intelligent local administration as well as general legislation by a system of society and State reports on the actual condition of the schools. To this Petition he obtained the names of many persons, who habitually oppose every proposition of local improvement which involves taxation, of several political friends, who declared afterwards they did not know that they had signed any paper of this purport, and of a few excellent men, some of whom lived long enough to vote for the estab lishment of a Society High School, and enjoy the advantages of it in the educa tion of their own children and grandchildren, and to thank the writer of this History for the part he took in the petition for its establishment.

PETITION

To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, now in Session at New Haven :

The memorial of the subscribers respectfully represents that, in their opinion, some evils exist in the present law entitled "An Act concerning Common Schools," which require the interference of your honorable body.

1. The power given to divert a part of the School Fund Dividends to sustain High Schools to be established by School Societies or Union Districts, we think ought not to exist. The School Fund ought to be strictly confined to primary district schools, which are for the common benefit of all.

2. Districts should not, in our opinion, have the power to cast the whole expense of common schools upon the grand list, but the common school should be supported as formerly, and the High School by those for whose benefit it is established; and all taxes ought, as we believe, to be laid as formerly, on the polls and ratable estates of the inhabitants of School Districts. The present mode, compelling a separate list for each District to be prepared every year, is attended with much trouble and expense, with little or no benefit.

3. We doubt the utility of paying School Visitors for their services. We query whether the services will be as faithfully rendered as when gratuitously done, and we cannot but think that competent men can be found who will willingly make this little sacrifice to the cause of popular education.

We therefore respectfully point out the last clause of the 8th, the 9th, the 22d to 27th inclusive, and the 38th and 39th sections of the present law as requiring repeal or revision, and therefore pray your Honors to devote to the foregoing suggestions such action as you in your wisdom shall deem necessary, and we as in duty bound, etc.

(Signed by 100 citizens.)