The Pilgrim Fathers, amid all their privations and dangers, conceived the magnificent idea, not only of a universal, but of a free education for the whole people. To find the time and the means to reduce this grand conception to practice, they stinted themselves, amid all their poverty, to a still scantier pittance; amid all their toils, they imposed upon themselves still more burdensome labors; and, amid all their perils, they braved still greater dangers. Two divine ideas filled their great hearts — their duty to God and to posterity. For the one they built the church, for the other they opened the school. Religion and knowledge two attributes of the same glorious and eternal truth, and that truth the only one on which immortal or mortal happiness can be securely founded!

It is impossible for us adequately to conceive the boldness of the measure which aimed at universal education through the establishment of free schools. As a fact, it had no precedent in the world's history; and, as a theory, it could have been refuted and silenced by a more formidable array of argument and experience than was ever marshalled against any other institution of human origin. But time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries of successful operation now proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, and as beneficent as it was disinterested. Every community in the civilized world awards it the meed of praise; and states at home and nations abroad, in the order of their intelligence, are copying the bright example. What we call the enlightened nations. of Christendom are approaching, by slow degrees, to the moral elevation which our ancestors reached at a single bound. . . .

In later times, and since the achievement of American independence, the universal and ever-repeated argument in favor of free schools has been that the general intelligence which they are capable of diffusing, and which can be imparted by no other human instrumentality, is indispensable to the continuance of a republican government. This argument, it is obvious, assumes, as a postulatum, the superiority of a republican over all other forms of government; and, as a people, we religiously believe in the soundness both of the assumption and of the argument founded upon it. But, if this be all, then a sincere monarchist, or a defender of arbitrary power, or a believer in the divine right of kings, would oppose free schools for the identical reasons we offer in their behalf. . . .

Again, the expediency of free schools is sometimes advocated on grounds of political economy. An educated people is always a more industrious and productive people. Intelligence is a primary ingredient in the wealth of nations. . . . The moralist, too, takes up the argument of the economist. He demonstrates that vice and crime are not only prodigals and spendthrifts of their own, but defrauders and plunderers of the means of others, that they would seize upon all the gains of hon

est industry and exhaust the bounties of Heaven itself without satiating their rapacity; and that often in the history of the world whole generations might have been trained to industry and virtue by the wealth which one enemy to his race has destroyed.

And yet, notwithstanding these views have been presented a thousand times with irrefutable logic, and with a divine eloquence of truth which it would seem that nothing but combined stolidity and depravity could resist, there is not at the present time [1846], with the exception of the States of New England and a few small communities elsewhere, a country or a state in Christendom which maintains a system of free schools for the education of its children. . .

I believe that this amazing dereliction from duty, especially in our own country, originates more in the false notions which men entertain respecting the nature of their right to property than in anything else. In the district school meeting, in the town meeting, in legislative halls, everywhere, the advocates for a more generous education could carry their respective audiences with them in behalf of increased privileges for our children, were it not instinctively foreseen that increased privileges must be followed by increased taxation. Against this obstacle, argument falls dead. The rich man who has no children declares that the exaction of a contribution from him to educate the children of his neighbor is an invasion of his rights of property. The man who has reared and educated a family of children denounces it as a double tax when he is called upon to assist in educating the children of others also; or, if he has reared his own children without educating them, he thinks it peculiarly oppressive to be obliged to do for others what he refrained from doing even for himself. Another, having children, but disdaining to educate them with the common mass, withdraws them from the public school, puts them under what he calls "selecter influences," and then thinks it a grievance to be obliged to support a school which he contemns. Or, if these different parties so far yield to the force of traditionary sentiment and usage, and to the public opinion around them, as to consent to do something for the cause, they soon reach the limit of expense at which their admitted obligation or their alleged charity terminates.

It seems not irrelevant, therefore, in this connection, and for the purpose of strengthening the foundation on which our free-school system reposes, to inquire into the nature of a man's right to the property he possesses, and to satisfy ourselves respecting the question whether any man has such an indefeasible title to his estates or such an absolute ownership of them as renders it unjust in the government to assess upon him his share of the expenses of educating the children of the community up to such a point as the nature of the institutions under which he lives, and the well-being of society, require.

I bring my argument on this point, then, to a close; and I present a test of its validity, which, as it seems to me, defies denial or evasion.

In obedience to the laws of God and to the laws of all civilized communities, society is bound to protect the natural life of children; and this natural life cannot be protected without the appropriation and use of a portion of the property which society possesses. We prohibit infanticide under penalty of death. We practice a refinement in this particular. The life of an infant is inviolable, even before he is born; and he who feloniously takes it, even before birth, is as subject to the extreme penalty of the law as though he had struck down manhood in its vigor, or taken away a mother by violence from the sanctuary of home where she blesses her offspring. But why preserve the natural life of a child, why preserve unborn embryos of life, if we do not intend to watch over and to protect them, and to expand their subsequent existence into usefulness and happiness? As individuals, or as an organized community, we have no natural right, we can derive no authority or countenance from reason, we can cite no attribute or purpose of the divine nature, for giving birth to any human being, and then inflicting upon that being the curse of ignorance, of poverty, and of vice, with all their attendant calamities. We are brought, then, to this startling but inevitable alternative, the natural life of an infant should be extinguished as soon as it is born, or the means should be provided to save that life from being a curse to its possessor; and, therefore, every State is morally bound to enact a code of laws legalizing and enforcing infanticide or a code of laws establishing free schools.

The three following propositions, then, describe the broad and everduring foundation on which the common-school system of Massachusetts reposes:

The successive generations of men, taken collectively, constitute one great commonwealth.

The property of this commonwealth is pledged for the education of all its youth, up to such a point as will save them from poverty and vice, and prepare them for the adequate performance of their social and civil duties.

The successive holders of this property are trustees, bound to the faithful execution of their trust by the most sacred obligations; and embezzlement and pillage from children and descendants have not less of criminality, and have more of meanness, than the same offences when perpetrated against contemporaries.

* 317. Repeal of the Connecticut School Law

(Message of Governor Cleveland to the Connecticut Legislature, in May, 1842. In Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. 1, p. 677)

In 1837 the first American State Board of Education was created by the Legislature of Massachusetts, and in 1838 the Legis

lature of Connecticut, under the inspiration of Henry Barnard, one of its members, created a similar board. Henry Barnard was appointed its first Secretary, and from 1838 to 1842 gave his best efforts to the creation of an educational sentiment and to the establishment and improvement of schools in Connecticut, for the munificent salary of $3.00 a day. What promised to be the beginning of a new era in education in that State was soon cut short by a succeeding Legislature, acting under the inspiration of a Governor opposed to the new ideas. In his message to the Connecticut Legislature, in May, 1842, Governor Cleveland said:

An opinion was advanced some years since, calling in question, to some extent, the beneficial influence of the School Fund, as it has been applied; and the Legislature, by way of experiment, established a Board of Commissioners of Common Schools; and, under the belief that some essential improvements might be made, an officer has been employed, at considerable expense, to visit the various schools in the State with reference to their improvement. As a part of the same plan, provision was subsequently made by law for paying the visitors of the district schools one dollar a day for their services. The reason for the imposition of this tax, which, when the number of districts and committee-men is considered, will appear to be a considerable sum, has never been apparent. From time immemorial, it has been deemed a part of the obligations which competent men owed to society, to attend to these duties; and no inconvenience had ever been experienced. Until the spirit of benevolence and good-will to men shall cease to burn in the hearts of our people, I anticipate no difficulty in following, in this respect, in the path of our fathers. Without questioning the motives of those by whom these experiments were suggested and adopted, I think it obvious, that the public expectations, in regard to their consequences, have not been realized; and that to continue them, will be only to entail upon the State a useless expense. In conformity with this opinion, and in obedience to what I believe to be the public sentiment, I recommend the repeal of these laws.

In addition the Governor successfully used his personal influence with the members of the Legislature, and secured the repeal of the law creating the Board, the abolition of the Union-Schools law, and other progressive legislation. The Union-Schools law was regarded as a "dangerous innovation," because it "created by law schools of a higher order."

318. Horace Mann on the Repeal of the Connecticut Law (Massachusetts Common School Journal, 1846. Reproduced in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. 1, p. 719)

After commenting on the progress of education in Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts, Mann has the following to say of Connecticut.

One only of the New England States proves recreant to duty in this glorious cause the State of Connecticut. Favored for half a century, in the munificence of her endowments, beyond any of her New England sisters, she is the only one which, for the last few years, has not merely been stationary, but has absolutely retrograded; and now, if she promises to be useful at all, it is as a warning and not as an example. A common ancestry, an identity of general interests and pursuits, a similar position in regard to the other States of the Union, and a similar duty to furnish them with high example and encouragement, has led us all to expect that we should have, not only the sympathy, but the active coöperation, of Connecticut, in this common cause. We not only expected it, we believed it. Events seemed auspicious. The year after the Massachusetts Board of Education was established, an organization almost identical in its form, and entirely so in its object, was created in Connecticut. For carrying out its measures of reform and improvement, an agent was selected — Henry Barnard, Esquire — of whom it is not extravagant to say that, if a better man be required, we must wait, at least, until the next generation, for a better one is not to be found in the present. This agent entered upon his duties with unbounded zeal. He devoted to their discharge his time, talents, and means. The cold torpidity of the State soon felt the sensations of returning vitality. Its half-suspended animation began to quicken with a warmer life. Much and most valuable information was diffused. Many parents began to appreciate more adequately what it is to be a parent. Teachers were awakened. Associations for mutual improvement were formed. System began to supersede confusion. Some salutary laws were enacted. All things gave favorable augury of a prosperous career. And it may be further affirmed, that the cause was so administered as to give occasion of offence to no one. The whole movement was kept aloof from political strife. All religious men had reason to rejoice that a higher tone of religious and moral feeling was making its way into the schools, without giving occasion of jealousy to the one-sided views of any denomination. But all these auguries of good were delusive. In an evil hour the whole fabric was overthrown. The Educational Board was abolished. Of course, the office of its devoted and faithful Secretary fell with it. As if this were not enough, the remedial laws which had been enacted during the brief existence of