dren who are uninstructed, and who cannot be instructed unless some aid is given to their parents, we have found it impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion. We have no doubt that 3000 or 4000 children, between the ages of three or four and twelve, would be found, on examination, either to be without education altogether, or to be receiving it of a very inferior quality, and at a higher rate than at the British school in Somers Town. If the 4000 householders, who find themselves qualified to vote for members of parliament, were to be annually taxed, on the average, 10s. per house, this would produce a sum amply sufficient to build new schools where they are wanted, quite as speedily as they would be filled. The average rental of houses in this parish above 101. is, we are informed, probably as high as 50l. per annum. We know there is considerable indifference on the part of many poor parents about the education of their children, even for the few years that they can be spared from labour, yet the advantages of the regular attendance on these schools would soon be so apparent, and it would be so easy to encourage the boys by judicious rewards, that we think the schools in a few years would be full to overflowing. As to those parents (not in the workhouse) who receive parish relief, we do not know what their children are doing at present, but we maintain the parish has a right, in every reasonable interpretation of that word, and a duty also, to instruct them up to a certain age. It would not be extravagant to anticipate an advantage to those who pay the school tax more than equivalent to it, by the reduction in the poor-rates, though we also think there are many reductions which could be made at once to an amount quite sufficient to meet the additional tax which would be necessary for the school fund.

EDUCATION IN AMERICA.

WE cannot do better than subjoin, as an appendix to the preceding article, the following extract from Chancellor Kent's Commentaries on American Law, vol. ii., p. 164; and we beg our readers to refer, at the same time, to an article in No. I. of this Journal, entitled, Elementary Instruction in Scotland, the United States, &c. ;' to one in No. IV. on the New England Free Schools,' and to an article in No. VII. on Education in the State of Virginia.' The remarks of Chancellor Kent, a distinguished lawyer of the state of New York, will be found well worth attention, in spite of a few rather apocryphal notions about education

among the states of antiquity. The necessity of a provision for universal education in England, without distinction of sect or party, must be repeatedly urged, till the country, which ranks itself one of the first in civilization, has redeemed itself from the disgrace of being one of the most backward in general education.

The duty of educating children in a manner suitable to their calling and station is another branch of parental duty, of imperfect obligation generally in the eye of the municipal law, but of very great importance to the welfare of the state. Without some preparation made in youth for the sequel of life, children of all conditions would probably become idle and vicious when they grow up, either from the want of good habits and the means of subsistence, or from want of rational and useful occupation. A parent who sends his son into the world uneducated, and without any skill in any art or science, does a great injury to mankind, as well as his own family, for he defrauds the community of a useful citizen, and bequeathes to it a nuisance. This parental duty is strongly and persuasively inculcated by the writers on natural law. Solon was so deeply impressed with the force of the obligation, that he even excused the children of Athens from maintaining their parents if they had neglected to train them up to some useful art or profession. Several of the states of antiquity were too solicitous to form their youth for the various duties of civil life, to entrust their education solely to the parent. Public institutions were formed in Persia, Crete, and Lacedæmon, to regulate and promote the education of children, in things calculated to render them useful citizens, and to adapt their minds and manners to the genius of the government. Great pains have been taken, and a munificent and noble provision made, in this country to diffuse the means of knowledge, and to render ordinary instruction accessible to all. Several of the states have made the maintenance of public schools an article in their constitutions. In the New England States each town and parish are obliged by law to maintain an English school a considerable portion of the year, and the school is under the superintendence of the public authority, and the poorest children in the country have access to these schools. The state of Connecticut has a large and growing school fund, economically and wisely managed, and appropriated, in a great degree, to the support of common schools. Ordinary education is so far enforced in that state, that if parents will not teach their children the elements of knowledge, by causing them to

read the English tongue well, and to know the laws against capital offences, the select men of the town are enjoined to take their children from such parents, and bind them out to proper masters, where they will be taught to read and write, and the rules of arithmetic necessary to transact business. This law, said the late Chief Justice Reeve, has produced very astonishing effects, and to it is to be attributed the knowledge of reading and writing, so universal among the people of that state. In Massachusetts they have nothing which bears the name of a school fund, yet liberal donations have been made for the support of grammar schools, ordained by law in every town of a certain size. The legislature of Virginia, also, some years ago, appropriated the greater part of the income of a literary fnnd to the establishment of schools for the education of the poor throughout the state.

The laws of our own state were formerly exceedingly deficient on this subject, and we had no legal provision for the establishment of town schools, or the common education of children, except the very unimportant authority given to the overseers of the poor, and two justices, to bind out poor children as apprentices, according to their degree and ability, and the obligation imposed upon their masters to learn them to read and write. But since the year 1795, a new and bright light shines upon our domestic annals, and from that era, we date the commencement of a great and spirited effort on the part of government to encourage common schools throughout the state. The annual sum of 50,000 dollars was appropriated for five years, and distributed equitably among the several towns, for the teaching of children the most useful and necessary branches of education. A sum equal to onehalf of the sum granted by the state to each town was directed to be raised by each town during the same period, for an additional aid to the schools. In 1805, a permanent fund for the support of common schools was first provided, and it was enlarged by subsequent legislative appropriations. An increasing anxiety for the growth, security, and application of the fund, and a deep sense of its value and importance, were constantly felt. In 1811, the legislature took measures for the preparation and digest of a system for the organization and establishment of common schools, and the distribution of the interest of the school fund. In 1812, the present system was established, under the direction of an officer known as the superintendent of common schools. The interest of the school fund was directed to be annually distributed among the several towns, in a ratio to their population, provided the towns should raise a sum equal to their

proportion by a tax upon themselves. Each town was directed to be divided into school districts, and town commissioners and school inspectors were directed to be chosen, and the children who had access to these schools were to be between the ages of five and fifteen years.

This system, thus established, has prospered to an astonishing degree. In 1820, the fund distributed was 80,000 dollars, in addition to a like sum, which was raised by means of taxation in the several school districts, and applied in the same way. In 1823, there were 7382 school districts, and consequently as many common schools; and upwards of 400,000 children, or more than one-fourth of our entire population, were included in that year in these common schools. The sum of 182,000 dollars, and upwards, was expended in that year from the permanent school fund and the monies raised by town taxes for that purpose, in the support of common schools. The general and local school fund, according to the report of the superintendent of common schools, of the 8th of January, 1824, amounted to 1,637,000 dollars, and it is well known to be in a steady course of progressive enlargement.

According to the last annual reports of the superintendent of common schools, made in January, 1827, there were 431,601 children taught at the public schools, without including those belonging to 570 school districts, from which no reports were received.

The instruction is probably very scanty in many of the schools from the want of school books and good teachers; but the elements of knowledge are universally taught, and the foundations of learning are laid; the school fund is solid and durable, and it is placed under the guarantee of the constitution, which declares, that the proceeds of all lands belonging to this state, except such parts thereof as may be reserved or appropriated to public use, which shall thereafter be sold or disposed of, together with the fund denominated the common school fund, shall be and remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated and applied to the support of common schools throughout

this state.

Such a liberal and efficient provision for the universal diffusion of common and useful instruction may be contemplated with just pride, and with the most cheering anticipations.

THE UNIVERSITIES OF SCOTLAND.

CONSIDERED as seminaries of learning, the Scottish universities, in their present state, may probably be regarded as occupying a lower place than those of any other country in Europe. The statements we have laid before our readers in the two preceding numbers of the Journal seem fully to bear us out in this judgment. The pupils of these establishments, generally speaking, are certainly not carried so far at the termination of their course, either in Greek or Latin, as the boys of our great schools in this end of the island. But, then, the acquirements made at the latter are made with the feeling and knowledge that they are merely elementary, and are to serve as the foundation for additional and higher acquirements elsewhere; whereas, the Scottish student is taught to regard his slight and inadequate progress as the completion of his education. Not only is his conception of what a competent scholarship implies by this means lowered, and a character of sciolism impressed upon his whole literary constitution and habits, but he does not even apply himself to the elementary work in which he is engaged with the same anxiety and energy which would be called forth in other circumstances. There is nothing beyond to which it seems to lead, or for which it is felt to be a preparation. The spur which would be given to his exertions by such a prospect in the distance is nearly altogether wanting. He is almost in the condition of a person who should be set to learn the grammar of a language which it is not intended that he should ever afterwards attempt either to read or to speak. The servile and oppressive drudgery of the apprenticeship is here unlightened by the anticipation of the superior station to which it leads; it is the toil of climbing the hill without any hope of ever reaching the summit. The knowledge that is actually attained is too small in amount to form, by itself, any adequate reward for the pains which have been bestowed on its acquisition; and yet no higher degree of proficiency is held out as that to which it is intended to lead. The little Latin and less Greek' of which the attendant at these classes is put in possession, although in general hardly enough to enable him to read even the former language with facility, or the latter, it may almost be said, at all, is represented not as his initiation but as his sufficient institution in classic learning;-it is not, like the instruction communicated at a grammar-school, received by the pupil as his necessary introduction to something else, and therefore received with some degree of eagerness for the sake of that higher object, but it is left to depend for its acceptance in his eyes, and the quantum of regard and attention which