one. As the district provides its own house, the town is comparatively without interest in the matter, and therefore is slow to exercise its power. Hence the district for generations is allowed to continue a small school, comparatively valueless under the most favorable circumstances, in charge, probably, of cheap, and necessarily incompetent teacher, in a house entirely unfit for the custody, to say nothing of the education of children. Now transfer the support of the school-houses to the town, and at once a general interest takes the place of local custom or prejudice, and small schools are abolished as far as is consistent with the public convenience, and the erection of one suitable house is likely to be followed by a successful, because just, demand for equal accommodations for all."

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A similar change from the old system to the new, is slowly progressing in Connecticut. Referring to an enactment authorizing and facilitating this change, the Superintendent, in a recent report, remarks: Among the objects proposed to be accomplished by this act are, to simplify the machinery of the system, by committing to the hands of one board of school officers what is now divided between three; to equalize the advantages of the schools, by abolishing the present district lines, and placing all the schools under one Committee, thereby also facilitating the gradation of schools and the proper classification of scholars, and the establishment of schools of a higher grade in towns containing a sparse population, and substituting a simpler and more efficient organization."

Hon. CALEB MILLS, when Superintendent of Public Instruction of Indiana, declared in his Report of 1855, that the township feature of the school law of that State was "one of the crowning excellences of the system." Hon. HENRY C. HICKOK, the Superintendent of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania, remarked to me inconversation, "The crowning glory of the Pennsylvania school system, in addition to its County Superintendency, is its new township plan of government, and the consequent avoidance of the ensmalling of districts."

As Indiana has faithfully tried both systems, and is a sister State of the great North-West, I shall freely cite the results of its Township experience, as contrasted with the old district plan:

Under the old district system," says Hon. W. C. LARRABEE, in his report as Superintendent of Public Instruction in that State, in 1852, "heretofore in use in this State, and until lately in all the Eastern States, serious inconveniences, and sometimes insurmountable difficulties could but exist. I myself came near being wholly cheated out of an education by this most injudicious and iniquitous system. The township was

mapped off into districts by geographical lines. The district boundaries could not be passed. A family must send only to the school to which they might be geographically assigned, though a swamp or a river be in the way, though unluckily they might live on the very frontiers of the district, and there might be in another district a school-house provokingly near them.

"Under our present system these districts are utterly abolished. Each civil township forms a corporation for school purposes. The township Trustees are authorized and required to establish, and conveniently locate in the township a sufficient number of schools for the education of all the children therein.' Each family may send to any school in the township most convenient or agreeable. Whenever any person can be more conveniently accommodated at the school of some adjoining township, or even in an adjoining county, than in his own township or county, he is at liberty to make his own selection, and attend where he pleases.

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"This repudiation of arbitrary district lines, and this liberty to the family of choosing a school according to its own nience and pleasure, is one of the most admirable features of our system. It gives, wherever it has been put in practice, unbounded satisfaction. It only needs, in order to become universally popular, to be understood in its practical advantages. One of the committee who reported the law last winter, a gentleman, whose services and experience in the cause of education render his opinions of great weight, thus writes to me of the operation of this principle in his own county: The people express much satisfaction at the provision of the new law, which enables them to make their own selection of schools, unrestrained by geographical lines. A few days ago, I met a farmer, whose name had by accident been omitted in our enumeration. I requested him to give me the number of his children, which he said he would do, as it might be of some advantage to us, although it was of no use to him. I asked him, why? He said the school in his own district was so remote, and the road so difficult, that he had altogether given up sending his children. I told him that districts no longer existed, that he could send his children, without charge, to any public school he might select. On this his countenance directly brightened up. Well,' said he, there is sense in that. I shall send my children to-morrow.' Another venerable man, nearly seventy years old, as he was paying his tax yesterday to the Treasurer, said, 'I have been paying a heavy school tax for several years, and have derived no benefit therefrom.' I asked him, why? He answered, 'I reside in a remote part of the school district. It is utterly impracticable for me to send to our school-house.

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There is a school-house in an adjoining township close at hand, but I have no right to its privileges.' I told him that senseless obstacle had been removed under our new system. He could now send to school, if more convenient, in an adjoining_township, or even in an adjoining county. Well,' said he, I shall hereafter derive some benefit from the school system.' Wherever this principle is understood by the people, it is popular.'

"In such a territory as ours, in many parts nearly roadless, and intersected by bridgeless streams, and in some of the northern counties, obstructed in communication by impassible swamps, such a system is the only one promising any success. It is indeed strange, that the people have so long submitted to the district system, so replete with inequalities, injustice, and inconveniences, and so deficient in redeeming qualities. So true it is, that we often remain, for a long time, unaware of the serious inconvenience and injury we suffer from imperfections and abuses to which we are ascustomed. But when the remedy is discovered, and the corrective applied, we wonder how we could so long overlook so simple a remedy for so serious evils."

"Indiana," says Mr. LARRABEE, in his report of 1853, "was the first State to abolish the old district system. But not the last. Ohio has followed in her footsteps. Massachusetts is preparing to follow, and in a few years the township system will be the rule, and the district system only the exception, in more than half the States of the Union. It is conceded on all hands, that this system will, in the end, when fully developed, work out the most favorable results. It is the only system by which we can make any tolerable approach to equality in educational advantages for all parts of the State."

"Unequal burdens and unequal privileges," says Hon. CALEB MILLS, of Indiana, in his report as Superintendent of Public Instruction in January, 1857, "in the same township, cease to vex and annoy. These sources of complaint and dissatisfaction will be dried up, and these inseparable concomitants of the district feature will be numbered among the things that were and are not. The superiority of the present over the former system, in the equity of its requisitions, is very striking and manifest. Under the former system, districts in the same township, having an equal number of children, and consequently needing school-houses of similar size and accommodations, would be very unequally taxed to erect these structures. The property in one district would not be assessed for this purpose more than fifteen cents on the hundred dollars, while the wealth in the other must respond to the demand of not less than three times that amount. Is that right, equitable, and in accordance with the principle that demands equality of assessment for gen

eral interests and common benefits, in the same corporation? Should such a gross inequality of burdens be tolerated any longer? Should neighbors, living in daily intercourse with each other, be subject to such unrighteous levies? The present system protects us against all such inequitable assessments, and provides that each district shall have, at the common expense of the township, a comfortable, commodious and tasteful house, whose associations shall be pleasant and instructive. Such is the contrast, in reference to equality of burdens, presented by the past and present educational codes of Indiana.

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"An inequality of privilege, equally gross and manifest, existed under the old district system, which disappears by the operation of the township principle. Districts of equal geographical area in the same corporation will often be exceedingly diverse in comparative population at different periods of their history. One may have twenty-five, another fifty, a third seventy-five, and a fourth one hundred pupils. On the district system, the educational funds were necessarily distributed on the per capita basis. These funds, converted into tuition, would be represented by one, two, three, or four month's instruction. Should friends, perhaps even brothers, living in the adjacent angles of the aforesaid districts, be subject to such an inequitable participation of a common patrimony? Should the children of these families be so unequally cared for by her who claims the name and assumes to be their educational foster-mother? Such palpable injustice was the inevitable result, the legitimate sequence of the district system. Weak districts seemed only the weaker by contrast with the adjacent strong ones. could be more annoying to those thus situated in the same township, citizens of that miniature republic, where we first begin to govern ourselves politically, where are first awakened those official aspirations which extend, perhaps, through a series of coveted elevations till they culminate in the Presidency. It has existed, still exists, is deplored and lamented elsewhere. Our own experience attests the reality of the evil. Various prescriptions have been suggested for the disease, termed weak districts, by distinguished physicians, but the honor of discovering an effectual remedy for this wasting malady belongs to the Indiana faculty, who have nobly made it patent to the world. It is found in the 27th section of our revised School Law, and reads thus: The schools in each township shall be taught an equal length of time, without regard to the diversity in the number of pupils in the several schools.' It just meets the exigencies of the case, and will prove an effectual and permanent correction of the aforesaid evil. It is pre-eminently wise, just and honorable, for it secures an equitable participation of the

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educational provisions furnished by the State, as completely as human wisdom and sagacity could devise. It involves no injustice in the operation, for the commonwealth, pledged by her fundamental law to educate all her youth, as a wise and judicious parent, provides for the training of the twenty-five of one district, and the seventy-five of another, during an equal period of time. If she can give them only six months tuition annually, none, enjoying that amount of instruction, are wronged, because others,numerically less, receive a similar favor. It is not money that the State proposes to give her youths. It is something better, more enduring, and pertaining to both worlds, mental and moral culture. This she designs to distribute equally, and, by the aforesaid provision, effects as nearly as human ingenuity will admit."

Hon. H. H. BARNEY, in his Report as Commissioner of the Common Schools of Ohio, in 1855, remarks of the School Law of that State of 1853, that it "constitutes each and every organized township in the State but one school district for all purposes connected with the general interests of education in the township, and confides its management and control to a Board of Education. The law also contains provisions for introducing a system of Graded Schools into every city, town, incorporated village and township in the State. In accordance with the same principles, and for the purpose of accomplishing the same beneficient object, the Legislature of Indiana, in 1852, enacted a School Law abolishing all the school districts, and declaring each civil township in the several counties a township for school poses, and the Trustees for such township, Trustees for school purposes; and the Clerk and Treasurer, Clerk and Treasurer for school purposes; and that 'the Board of Trustees shall take charge of the educational affairs of the township, employ teachers, establish and conveniently locate a sufficient number of schools for the education of the children therein,' and that 'they may also establish Graded Schools, or such modifications of them as may be practicable.'

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"Whatever diversity of opinion may educationists, as to the best manner of constituting Township Boards of Education, there can be but one opinion as to the propriety of having a township school organization. Facts, experiments, the observations and opinions of those competent to judge, have fully settled this matter. It is not, however, so clearly determined whether the School Committees or Boards of Education of townships should consist of three or six persons; one-third to be elected, and the other third to go out of office annually; or whether they should be elected by the township at large, or by the sub-districts. Nor is the principle fully settled, whether