The Same.

Ir was among my earliest duties to bring to the notice of the legislature the neglected condition of many thousand children, including a very large proportion of those of immigrant parentage, in our great commercial city; a misfortune then supposed to result from groundless prejudices and omissions of parental duty. Especially desirous at the same time not to disturb in any manner the public schools, which seemed to be efficiently conducted, although so many for whom they were established, were unwilling to receive their instructions, I suggested, as I thought in a spirit not inharmonious with our civil and religious institutions, that if necessary it might be expedient to bring those so excluded from such privileges into schools rendered especially attractive by the sympathies of those to whom the task of instruction should be confided. It has since been discovered that the magnitude of the evil was not fully known, and that its causes were very imperfectly understood. It will be shown you in the proper report, that twenty thousand children in the city of New York, of suitable age, are not at all instructed in any of the public schools, while the whole number in all the residue of the state not taught in common schools, does not exceed nine thousand. What had been regarded as individual, occasional, and accidental prejudices have proved to be opinions pervading a large mass, including at least one religious communion equally with all others entitled to civil tolerance-opinions cherished through a period of sixteen years, and ripened into a permanent, conscientious distrust of the impartiality of the education given in the public schools. This distrust has been rendered still deeper and more alienating by a subversion of precious civil rights of those whose consciences are thus offended.

Happily in this as in other instances, the evil is discovered to have had its origin no deeper than in a departure from the equality of general laws. In our general system of common schools, trustees, chosen by tax-paying citizens, levy taxes, build schoolhouses, employ and pay teachers, and govern schools which are subject to visitation by similarly-elected inspectors, who certify the qualifications of teachers; and all schools thus constituted participate in just proportion in the public moneys,

which are conveyed to them by commissioners also elected by the people. Such schools are found distributed in average spaces of two and a half square miles throughout the inhabited portions of the state, and yet neither popular discontent, nor political strife, nor sectarian discord, has ever disturbed their peaceful instructions or impaired their eminent usefulness. In the public school system of the city of New York, one hundred persons are trustees and inspectors, and, by continued consent of the common council, are the dispensers of an annual average sum of thirtyfive thousand dollars received from the common-school fund of the state, and also of a sum equal to ninety-five thousand dollars derived from an indiscriminating tax upon the real and personal estates of the city. They build schoolhouses chiefly with public funds, and appoint and remove teachers, fix their compensation, and prescribe the moral, intellectual, and religious instruction which one eighth of the rising generation of the state shall be required to receive. Their powers, more effective and far-reaching than are exercised by the municipality of the city, are not derived from the community whose children are educated and whose property is taxed, nor even from the state, which is so great an almoner, and whose welfare is so deeply concerned, but from an incorporated and perpetual association, which grants, upon pecuniary subscription, the privileges even of life membership, and yet holds in fee simple the public school edifices, valued at eight hundred thousand dollars. Lest there might be too much responsibility even to the association, that body can elect only one half the trustees, and those thus selected appoint their fifty associates. The philanthropy and patriotism of the present managers of the public schools, and their efficiency in imparting instruction, are cheerfully and gratefully admitted. Nor is it necessary to maintain that agents thus selected will become unfaithful, or that a system that so jealously excludes popular interference must necessarily be unequal in its operation. It is only insisted that the institution, after a fair and sufficient trial, has failed to gain that broad confidence reposed in the general system of the state, and indispensable to every scheme of universal education. No plan for that purpose can be defended except on the ground that public instruction is one of the responsibilities of the government. It is therefore a manifest legislative duty

to correct errors and defects in whatever system is established. In the present case the failure amounts virtually to an exclusion of all the children thus withheld. I can not overcome my regret that every suggestion of amendment encounters so much opposition from those who defend the public school system of the metropolis, as to show, that in their judgment it can admit of no modification, neither from tenderness to the consciences, nor from regard to the civil rights of those aggrieved, nor even for the reclamation of those for whose culture the state has so munificently provided; as if society most conform itself to the public schools instead of the public schools adapting themselves to the exigencies of society. The late eminent superintendent, after exposing the greatness of this public misfortune, and tracing it to the discrepancy between the local and general systems, suggested a remedy which, although it is not urged to the exclusion of any other, seems to deserve dispassionate consideration.

I submit, therefore, with entire willingness to approve whatever adequate remedy you may propose, the expediency of restoring to the people of the city of New York-what I am sure the people of no other part of the state would upon any consideration relinquish-the education of their children.

For this purpose, it is only necessary to vest the control of the common schools in a board to be composed of commissioners elected by the people; which board shall apportion the school moneys among all the schools, including those now existing, which shall be organized and conducted in conformity to its general regulations and the laws of the state, in the proportion of the number of pupils instructed. It is not left doubtful that the restoration to the common schools of the city of this simple and equal feature of the common schools of the state, would remove every complaint, and bring into the seminaries the offspring of want and misfortune presented by a grand jury on a recent occasion as neglected children of both sexes who are found in hordes upon wharves and on corners of the streets, surrounded by evil associations, disturbing the public peace, committing petty depredations, and going from bad to worse, until their course terminates in high crimes and infamy.

This proposition to gather the young from the streets and

wharves into the nurseries which the state, solicitous for her security against ignorance, has prepared for them, has sometimes been treated as a device to appropriate the school fund to the endowment of seminaries for teaching languages and faiths, thus to perpetuate the prejudices it seeks to remove; sometimes as a scheme for dividing that precious fund among a hundred jarring sects, and thus increasing the religious animosities it strives to heal; and sometimes as a plan to subvert the prevailing religion and introduce one repugnant to the consciences of our fellow-citizens; while, in truth, it simply proposes by enlightening equally the minds of all, to enable them to detect error wherever it may exist, and to reduce uncongenial masses into one intelligent, virtuous, harmonious, and happy people. Being now relieved from all such misconceptions, it presents the questions whether it is wiser and more humane to educate the offspring of the poor than to leave them to grow up in ignorance and vice ; whether juvenile vice is more easily eradicated by the court of sessions than by common schools; whether parents have a right to be heard concerning the instruction and instructors of their children, and tax-payers in relation to the expenditure of public funds; whether, in a republican government, it is necessary to interpose an independent corporation between the people and the schoolmaster; and whether it is wise and just to disfranchise an entire community of all control over public education, rather than suffer a part to be represented in proportion to its numbers and contributions.

Since such considerations are now involved, what has hitherto been discussed as a question of benevolence and universal education, has become one of equal civil rights, religious tolerance, and liberty of conscience. We could bear with us in our retirement from public service no recollection more worthy of being cherished through life than that of having met such a question in the generous and confiding spirit of our institutions, and of having decided it upon the immutable principles on which they are based.— Annual Message, 1842.

FREEDOM.

John Quincy Adams.

THE capitol is deserted! The legislature have suspended their labors; the city is in mourning; a sudden blow has fallen on the master-chord in the heart of this nation, and grief is diffusing itself throughout the Union. The voice of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS has died away on earth, and he has resumed converse with John Adams and Jefferson, with La Fayette and with Washington, in heaven.

Death found the statesman where he wished to meet it—in the capitol; in his place; in the performance of his duty; in defending the cause of peace and of freedom. He submitted to the inevitable blow as those who loved and honored him foretold and desired that he would-saying only, "This is the last of earth-I am content."

I will not suffer myself to speak all I feel on this sad occasion. While the American people have lost a father and a guide-while Humanity has lost her most eloquent, persevering, and indomitable advocate-I have lost a patron, a guide, a counsellor, and a friend-one whom I loved scarcely less than the dearest relations, and venerated above all that was mortal among men.

I speak in behalf of my associates. Great as he was, illustrious as his achievements were, he was one of us. He was a civilian, a lawyer, a jurist. His great mind was imbued with the science of our noble profession, and enriched with all congenial learning; and to these he added the ornaments of rhetoric

* Remarks before the Court of Chancery, Albany, Feb. 25, 1848.