er by its appropriation, while it is certain that in every town where the appropriation has been wisely expended, (as it might have been in every town,) better teachers have been employed, and the length of the school term has been prolonged-thus converting a portion of the material wealth of the town, into intelligence and virtue, which will hereafter diffuse happiness, create wealth, and preserve it from waste. In 1847, three towns which had for the first time in 1846, wheeled into the ranks of the advancing column of progress, fell away, and it is already certain in these towns, that while the children of the rich and the educated are provided for in private schools, at an expense exceeding thrice the amount of the whole school tax of the year preceding, the children of the poor are thrown back at least one year in their opportunities of education; and the aggregate intelligence of the next generation of men and women will be diminished to that extent. As high as the standard of intelligence may be in these towns, as compared with other towns in the State, or in New England, it is evident that it cannot stand this diminution, year after year, without sinking far below the general average, and without reaching a point of popular ignorance at which the people will not know how ignorant they are. The only towns in New England, which in 1847 deliberately refused to make provision for public schools, were New Shoreham, and East, and West, Greenwich,-three townshaving a much larger valuation than many towns in Massachusetts, Ver-mont and New Hampshire which raised voluntarily by tax three times the amount required to be raised under the school law of Rhode-Island.

10. A beginning has been made in the establishment of town, village and district libraries, and in arranging courses of popular lectures on subjects of science, art, literature and practical life.

A library of five hundred volumes has been purchased for a district in Portsmouth, at a cost of about two hundred dollars, towards which Miss Gibbs contributed one hundred dollars. In Glocester, Burrillville, and Foster, there will soon be libraries, each containing about seven hundred volumes, and all of them owing their origin to a liberal donation by Amasa Manton, Esq., of this city. The Lonsdale Company have expended five hundred and fifty dollars in the purchase of a library of nearly one thousand volumes. In Westerly one thousand dollars, and in Slatersville, five hundred dollars, have been subscribed for the same object. In Coventry, there is already a library of four hundred volumes at Washington village, and there will soon be a second of nearly the same number of volumes, at Bowen's Hill. There are also, libraries at the Globe, Bernon and Hamlet, in Smithfield; and at Mumfords', Carolina, Peacedale, and other points in South Kingstown. Similar efforts are making elsewhere, and a work has thus been begun, which it is hoped, will not be suspended until every town, and everylarge village in the State is supplied with a library of good books, which shall carry the blessings and advantages of knowledge to every workshop, and every fire-side.

Seventeen courses of popular lectures have been established in as many villages, which have already awakened a spirit for reading, disseminated much useful information on subjects of practical importance, suggested topics and improved the whole tone of conversation, and brought people of widely differing sentiments and habits, to a common source of enjoyment.

11. As at once the source of most of the improvements which have thus far been made, and as the pledge of a still greater advance in future, there has been awakened a good degree of parental and public interest on the subject of schools and education. The profound apathy which hung like a dead man's shroud on the public heart, has disappeared, and parents are begining to co-operate with school officers and teachers in carrying out the purposes of the law; and the school interest is fast becoming a prominent interest in the State. Let it once become such-let men read, think, talk and act about it, as they do about making money, or carrying a political election or propagating a creed, and Rhode-Island will become the model State of the Union. And why should she nct? No other State possesses such facilities. Her territory is small, and every advance in one town or district, can easily be known, seen and felt in every other. Her wealth is abundant, —more abundant, and more equally distributed than in any other state. Her population is concentrated in villages, which will admit of the establishment of public schools of the highest grade. The occupations of the people are diverse, and this is at once an element of power and safety. Commerce will give expansion; manufactures and the mechanical arts will give activity, power, invention and skill; and agriculture, the prudence and conservatism which should belong to the intellectual character and habits of a people. Rhode-Island has a large city, to which the entire population of the State is brought by business or pleasure every year, and which should impart a higher tone of manners, intelligence and business, than can exist in a state without a capital; and fortunately, Providence has set a noble example to the rest of the State in her educational institutions,-in the provision of her citizens for schools, libraries, and institutions of religion and benevolence. RhodeIsland too has a history,-her own peculiar history; and her great names, -the names of Williams, and Clark, of Green, and Perry, of Brown, and Slater, are a rich inheritance, and make her sons and daughters who remove into other States, proud of their paternal home.

This is a just and noble pride. But let no Rhode Islander forget the immense fund of talent which has slumbered in unconsciousness, or been only half developed, in the country towns of this State by reason of the defective provision for general education. Let the past four years be the first years of a new era-an era in which education, universal education, the complete and thorough education of every child born or living in the State-shall be realized. Let the problem be solved-how much waste by vice and crime can be prevented, how much the productive power of the State can be augmented, how far happy homes can be multiplied, by the right cultivation of the moral nature, and the proportionate developement of the intellectual faculties of every child;-how much more, and how much better, the hand can work when directed by an intelligent mind; how inventions for abridging labor can be multiplied by cultivated and active thought; in fine, how a State of one hundred and fifty thousand people can be made equal to a state of ten times that nnmber-can be made truly an Empire State, ruling by the supremacy of mind and the moral sentiments. All this can be accomplished by filling

the State with educated mothers, well qualified teachers, and good books, and bringing these mighty agencies to bear directly and under the most favorable circumstances upon every child and every adult.

In conclusion, Mr. Barnard remarked that this was the last annual meeting of the Institute which he should have the privilege of attending in his present official relations to the public schools. The state of his health precluded his discharging satisfactorily to himself the labors he had heretofore performed. As fellow laborers in a common field, he would say, to all, teachers, school officers, and citizens, persevere in the measures which have thus far been adopted, and adopt others more efficient. Act directly, and by all available means, on the public mind; quicken, enlighten, and direct aright the popular intelligence, as the source of all practical legislation, and judicious action on the subject of schools. Secure every advance in popular intelligence and feeling by judicious legal enactment-for public sentiment and action will not long remain in advance of the law. See to it, that the children of the State and especially those who live in the lanes and alleys of your city, or labor in your mills and shops, are gathered regularly during their school years into good schools. Establish institutions of industry, and reformation for vagrant children, and juvenile criminals. Educate well, if you can educate only one sex, the female children, so that every home shall have an educated mother. Bring the mighty stimulus of the living voice, and well matured thought on great moral, scientific, literary, and practical topics, to bear on the whole community so far as it can be gathered together to listen to popular lectures. Introduce into every town, and every family the great and the good of all past time, of this and other countries, by means of public libraries of well selected books. And above all provide for the professional training, the permanent employ. ment, and reasonable compensation of teachers-and especially, of fe male teachers, for upon their agency in popular education must we rely for a higher style of manners, morals, and intellectual culture. Let the munificent offer of Mr. Charles Potter, of the Tockwotton House, for the purpose of a Normal School-a building having an extent of accommodation admirably adapted to the object, which thirty thousand dollars, however judiciously laid out, could not furnish-be accepted. Let it be known as the Rhode Island Normal School and Institute of Public Instruction-the depository of school furniture and apparatus--the office of your Commissioner of Public Schools-the intelligence office of teachers, and lecturers,-in fine as the head quarters of education. Such an Institution can be organized on a plan, which in five years will place the cause of public instruction in advance of where it will be in twenty un der the operation of present agencies.

The meeting was then addressed by Professor Gammell, who presented the following resolutions, viz.:

Resolved, That the present condition of education in Rhode Island deserves to be regarded as a most encouraging beginning of the enterprize, but that in order to carry it forward and secure the high objects it aims to accomplish, the cause more especially demands the renewed and continued efforts of the people of the State.

Professor Gammell remarked that all which had hitherto been achieved, whether by public enactment or by private munificence and exertion, was but the beginning of the great work of educating the people. Many changes had been effected, better teachers were employed, better school-houses were erected, better views of education were prevailing, and noble examples of individual beneficence had been presented; but all these, great and important as they were, were but the commencement of an undertaking which was to be completed in future years. Whether we look at the seaport towns or the country, the city or the State at large, there was nothing that could be regarded as an end to be contented with, and to be left as finished. In Providence the school system has been in operation for eight years. We have between forty and fifty schools-primary, intermediate and grammar schools, and a high school. We have upwards of eighty teachers of different grades, and the whole system costs not less than thirty thousand dollars a year. Yet even here, with all these ample arrangements, which have been so long in existence, the standard is not so high, and good education is not appreciated, as the interests of the city really demand.

Boys, especially, were not kept at school so regularly or for so long a time as they should be. He was sorry to confess, that after all the effort and money which had been expended for free education here, so few were willing to spend time enough to receive it. The male department of the high school was seldom if ever full. Boys were constantly leaving it to go into stores to earn a little money, before their education was half completed. This showed that the work was only begun-that edu. cation was not appreciated in many portions of the community as it ought sto be. The same at least was equally true of the State at large. What has been done was but the beginning. The State was like ground which thad indeed been reclaimed from wildness and barrenness, which had been in part sown over with good seed, but it still required many a day of toil and patient culture before any full harvest of golden grain could be gath

ered in.

In order to carry forward what has been done, the resolution declared the necessity of renewed and continued effort-an effort which is never to be relaxed. The system must still be sustained by the wise provisions of public law, by the constant attention of public officers, and more than all by the fostering care and hearty co-operation of the people. This is what it especially needs. Laws and magistrates were in themselves insufficient. Individual citizens must give their time and attention to the subject as to a great interest of society, and by their precept and example lead the public mind up to a high appreciation of its transcendant importance. It is always a few individuals who mould the character of a community-they shape its opinions and direct its actions.

The presence of a few liberal minded and generous men is the true secret of the prosperity and social progress of many a thriving town. Their influence explains the social order and beauty, the intelligence and virtue that reign among the people. We need such men to carry forward our education both in the city and the country. Some such we already had, and among these he would venture to refer to the President

of this Institute, (Mr. Kingsbury,) now absent by severe sickness. Though occupied with a laborious profession, he had found time to accomplish a vast amount of benefit to the cause of education,-by soliciting funds and visiting different parts of the State, and by giving his constant influence to its advancement. Such men were always too few, and the higher interests of society suffer for the want of them.

Much has been said of late, said Professor G., about the peculiar mission of Rhode Island. But whatever it may be, we must have education. If we are to show the excellence of our peculiar ideas of government, or if we are still, as has lately been said, to demonstrate to all the world the benefits of public economy and of small salaries, we shall always need education, and that of the highest and best kind. We shall need it for the advancement of all our industrial interests which require the constant application of the principles of science. We shall need it to give us character and importance as a State, to grow for us men who can assert our principles and vindicate our rights in the councils of this great and still extending confederacy.

Mr. Osgood, being called upon by the chairman, said that he was reluctant to follow addresses so able and finished, with any remarks so crude and off-hand as his must needs be. He felt himself able, however, from some little personal observation, to confirm the views that had been presented. He would speak particularly of the influence of town and district libraries and popular lectures.

It takes but a small paragraph in a newspaper to state that a library of five hundred or one thousand volumes has been established in a place. But the event is by no means small in itself What, in fact, is it but the introduction of a company of gifted instructors, many of them the very master-minds of the human race into the community? If great processions parade the streets to do honor to the remains of some noted soldier, or to attend some sacred relic, as the tooth of a monk or the toe of a hermit to its consecrated resting place, it would not surely be out of keeping to welcome yet more enthusiastically the approach of great minds who still live in their works. It would be no great extravagance for the whole town, men, women, and children, to turn out in festive procession and escort the selectors of good books to its receptacle.

He was glad that in some cases, gentlemen of affiuence had made valuable donations of libraries to their native towns-thus reversing the parable of the Prodigal Son, and coming to the city not to squander but to increase their substance, and spare a portion for old friends and home in the country. He would like to see the custom universal, even although something of city luxury might be retrenched to furnish the bounty.

Mr. O spoke of cases within his own observation, especially of the excellent influence of the library in Lonsdale, founded there by the Corporation and very flourishing.

He spoke of the excellent influence of popular lectures in creating a taste for reading and desire for education. He insisted much upon the influence of lectures, and all assemblies for mutual improvement upon social manners and ideas of order. He described the recklessness of