5. The high school is limited to cities and towns, and is patronized by the few, and chiefly by those who are wealthy. It is unjust to levy a tax for its support upon the many who receive no benefit from it.

6. Our present school system has been enlarged and extended beyond the original purpose of its founders. The high school has been ingrafted upon the system contrary to the "original design;" hence it should be cut off.

I will indicate briefly the general course of argument I would take in answer to these various objections:

1. Is there too much education? Most of the men who say yes are either monarchists or oligarchists who believe in the divine right of the few to rule the many. Some of them are our religious fanatics, who do not believe in the freedom of the mind; and some of them are our so called utilitarians, who think that man was made to labor like a packhorse. It may be said that it is not worth while to consume time to speak of the absurd opinions of such persons; but they are not fools, and while their complaints show a want of information as to the real purpose of education, their objections have some foundation in the defects and weaknesses of our school system. We should give them a patient hearing in order that we may be able to remedy these defects. I think if we have as educators one fault which is more foolish than another, it is that we are unwilling to profit by the criticisms of men simply because we discover that they are not fully informed upon the school question. Is it not true that acquisition is with many of us still the measure of success? Do we yet fully realize that the habit of obedience to rightful authority is of more importance than the possession of knowledge? Do we yet understand that we must graduate most of our boys and girls into the practical industries of life rather than into the so called learned professions, and that ability to use knowledge is just as important as the possession of knowledge? Is it not true that we too often send out those who have haughty pride and are self sufficient rather than those who, having learned the way to truth, go out as humble seekers of it? And do we ourselves quite understand the difference between education, instruction, and information; that information is the brick of which the house may be made; that instruction is like the house, but without an inhabitant; and that education produces the builder and the living spirit that inhabits the house and makes it bright and beautiful? Knowledge is good, but knowledge and wisdom are commended of God, and both should be sought by men.

2. Another class of objectors is composed of those who are in favor of higher education, but who believe that boys and girls old enough to attend a high school ought to be trained in a school in which they will receive religious instruction. This class is composed chiefly of clergymen and of members of the faculties of denominational schools. They claim, and rightly too, that character is superior to scholarship; that goodness is an essential element of character, and that without suitable religious training a man is unfit to perform properly his part in life. They think that distinctive religious instruction should be commenced at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and that inasmuch as the public high school cannot give such religious training it ought not to be supported. It is even charged by many that the public schools are not performing their proper functions, and that much of the educated criminality and refined scoundrelism we see about us is directly traceable to the public schools. The New York Tribune, in a recent editorial, says:

Education of the intellect will not make men good. It will but change the nature of their criminality, and too often sharpen their wits to a point which will enable them to evade detection. There is a large and increasing body of thinkers who are of opinion that our common school system educates the intellect without enough consideration for the education of the heart, and who contend that thousands of boys and girls are annually turned out of these institutions who thus get no moral or religious instruction either at home or at school. We hope they are mistaken. But the frightful catalogue of all sorts of breaches of trust which our columns are daily presenting gives a terribly effective handle to those who hold to such theories.

Another influential journal, in quoting the Tribune, asks: "Is this the fault of our education?"

The public school professes to teach arithmetic, and it is confessed that it teaches it well. It does better than this; it teaches the child more than any other agency to respect rightful authority. This respect for law is one of the essential elements of good citizenship; it lies at the foundation of all successful family government and is one of the chief elements in religious training. The public school teaches a child to respect himself, to respect the rights of others, to honor his parents, and to obey the commandments of his Maker. Most of our teachers are God-fearing men and women, and they do seek, by precept and example, to teach a child those great moral truths that form the essence of religious training. But the public schools do not and need not attempt to teach denominational tenets. The schools cannot be called failures because they do not do this; they are not responsible for the fact that it is not done better than it is, neither are they to blame for the catalogue of breaches of trust which burdens our newspapers. Most of the petty crimes in our large cities are committed by those who do not attend the public schools, and the columns of the Tribune will show that men have to wait until they become presidents of insurance companies before they can gain the opportunity to steal millions.

While it is conceded that the public schools can do more than they now do, the home, the church, and the Sunday school have at least an equal responsibility in the matter. Nowhere in the world is there a more fit place to teach religion than in the home; the Sunday school and the church are special agencies created for this very purpose. The public school takes care of the child and teaches him for six hours in the day and for five days in the week, less than one-third of the time which he has left after giving him ample time for eating and sleeping. The church, the Sunday school, and the home may have the other two-thirds of his time, if they please, in which to teach him his religious obligations.

Now, if there be a responsibility for the fact that a child is not properly trained in his religious duties, it is quite clear to my mind that it must not be placed upon the shoulders of the schoolmaster. I believe that in this respect he performs his duty quite as successfully as the home and the Sunday school. I say in all earnestness that it is the failure of the home and of the Sunday school if failure there be.

The sad truth is that parents are not as much interested in the religious training of their children as they are in their mental training. They do not care as much for the Sunday school as they do for the day school. Tell a man that his child is quick to learn but that he is a young rascal, and he will smile; tell him that the child is dull at his books but that he is truthful and good, and he will frown. We make our day schools so attractive that the child will not stay away. Make your homes and your Sunday schools just as attractive. We employ the best teachers that money will buy; employ such for your Sunday school. We employ agencies and means that are sure to make the day school a success; the same agencies and means may be employed in the Sunday school. When parents will do their duty by the children at home; when they will go with their children to the Sunday school and see that they are there taught by experienced teachers; when they will spend as much care and time and money upon the Sunday school as upon the day school- there will be less need of charging any one with being responsible for a godless youth.

We have no quarrel with those who choose to patronize elementary denominational schools. But the charge cannot be sustained that the public high schools are at all responsible for the evils complained of.

3. The objection that a State has no legal right to support a high school has been answered over and over again. One of the ablest replies I have seen is the address delivered before the American Institute of Instruction at its last meeting by Hon. Judge Aldrich, to which I call your attention. It is not true that the school exists that the state may be perpetuated, but rather, the state exists that we may have schools. The grand purpose of life is not that we may be governed nor that we may govern, but that we may become happier, wiser, and better, and all associational enterprises should have this end in view. But how much intelligence is necessary to

enable a man to perform the functions of citizenship? The wisdom and intelligence that manifest themselves in a wise system of laws and in a perfected government must necessarily reside in the people. Good citizenship requires intelligence enough to make good laws, and patriotism enough to obey them and defend them when made. To obey is the duty of the subject; neither great wisdom nor a high degree of civilization is necessary to perform this duty. An ignorant man can be a good subject, thinking the opinions and executing the will of others, but he cannot properly exercise the functions of good citizenship. The highest form of citizenship necessitates the highest degree of intelligence. A limitation of intelligence is necessarily an abridgment of citizenship. Every voter of the State is a lawmaker. He expresses his thought through the ballot, and thus his intelligence manifests itself in the laws of the commonwealth. The truth is that independence in thinking on the part of the people is absolutely essential to the preservation of the Government. The more intelligence we put behind the ballot the more stable will our institutions become, and the more ignorance we suffer behind the ballot the sooner will they show signs of weakness and decay: the only hope of the country is in the intelligent ballot.

4. In reference to the claim that the State should provide no education that it does not compel all its children to take, I remark that those who advocate a system of compulsory attendance at school must take care lest they furnish strong arguments in favor of the limitations desired by these objectors. It seems to me that arguments in favor of a compulsory system can be turned against the high school system.

5. The argument that it is the rich few only who enjoy the advantages of the high school is one of the most persistent of all the objections urged. That the high school is a benefit to the entire community in which it is situated I shall not stop to prove. I affirm, however, that the claim that the high school is patronized by the wealthy and not by the poor is wholly without foundation; in fact, I have made inquiries in regard to several high schools, and in every case the majority of the patrons were of the poorer class. Here are the facts in reference to the Indianapolis High School. In the year 1875-76 the whole number of patrons was 537. They paid taxes as follows:

It may be said that this is an argument which the large taxpayers may turn against the high school. If so, let me say that the high school is one of the best agencies which we have by which property is protected. Every poor man knows that his boy has an opportunity to occupy a higher position in life than he occupies himself; he knows that there have been means provided by which his son may have an equal chance in the race of life with the son of his wealthy neighbor. This is the chief glory

of our country, and this feeling, more than anything else, makes a man a good citizen, contented with his lot. He feels that the government does something for him and more for his children. This makes him obedient to the laws and a patriotic defender of them when they are assailed. Take away the hope of the poor man that his child may occupy a higher position than he occupies himself, and the rights of property will not be as secure as they are to-day. The high school is one of the means by which the sons of the poor may climb up in the world. You may show that the wealthy pay for the high school. If they do, it is a good investment for them. A good high school is a better protection to the security of rights in property in a city than a thousand extra policeman would be.

6. The argument of "original design" is one that is used as a last resort. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the founders of our school system did not contemplate a high school; is that any reason why men with more experience should be bound not to change and improve it? It seems to me that such an argument is absurd. There is scarcely a law on our statute books, scarcely a State constitution, that has not been revised, amended, and improved. Experience has shown that the Federal Constitution as originally constructed was not adequate to meet our wants. The whole world to-day, in its laws, in its social customs, in its achievements, and in all its institutions, presents a wonderful exhibition of departure from original design. Adherence to original design turns its back upon the perfecting future and blocks the wheels of human progress.

In the case commonly known as the Kalamazoo High School case three persons, taxpayers, asked for an injunction restraining the officer from collecting a tax in support of the high school, on the ground "that this district has no power to levy taxes for the support of high schools in which foreign and dead languages shall be taught, because the special legislation had for its benefit in 1859 was invalid for lack of compliance with the constitution in the forms of enactment, and it never adopted the general law" (Compilation of the Laws, § 3742); "though, ever since that law was enacted," Chief Justice Cooley added, "the district has sustained such a school, and proceeded on the apparent assumption that the statutes were constitutional enactments and had been complied with." He continued:

After this lapse of time we must decline to consider this objection. The district existed de facto, and we suppose de jure, when the legislation of 1859 was had, and since then it has assumed to possess all the franchises which are now brought in question; and there has been a steady concurrence of action on the part of its people in the election of. officers, the levy of large taxes, and the employment of teachers for the support of a high school. The State has acquiesced in this assumption, and it has never been questioned until after thirteen years, when three individual taxpayers, out of some thousands, instituted a suit on their behalf, to which the public authorities give no countenance, and ask us to annul the franchises. To require a municipal corporation, after so long an acquiescence, to defend in a merely private suit the regularity not only of its own action but of the legislation that permitted it, could not be justified by the principles of law, much less of public policy.

I quote the opinion of Chief Justice Cooley in order to prove that an institution not directly prohibited by the constitution and existing under the forms of law, which has been generally acquiesced in by the people, ought not to be abolished simply because the constitution does not distinctly provide for its existence.

It can be shown, however, that the fathers builded wisely, and that the present system in its scope at least is not a departure from original design. I suppose that the original design of an institution may be determined by reference to the fundamental law on which it rests. The foundation upon which our school system is laid is the State constitution. Massachusetts, the oldest of the New England colonies, as early as 1636 gave voice to an "original design" in the establishment of a school of high degree at Cambridge, and in her first State constitution (chapter five, section one) declared that, "Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year 1636, laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great eminence have by the blessing of God been initiated in those arts and sciences which qualified them for public employments, both in church and state; and whereas the encouragement of

arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America, it is declared," &c. Chapter five, section two, declares that "it shall be the duty of the legislatures and magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns," &c. In the first constitution of Maine, adopted in 1819, the "original design” is found in these words: "And it shall further be their duty [the legislature's] to encourage and suitably endow, from time to time, as the circumstances of the people may authorize, all academies, colleges, and seminaries of learning within the State."

The first constitution of Indiana, adopted in 1816, among other things, provides as follows, viz:

* *

Knowledge and learning generally diffused through a community being essential to the preservation of a free government, and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country being highly conducive to this end, it shall be the duty of the general assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide by law for a general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a State university, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all.

These provisions were the result of design and not of accident. The act of the Territorial Legislature, September 17, 1807, incorporating Vincennes University, and the act of the State legislature of 1820, incorporating the State university, together with the discussions in the bodies which passed these acts, prove that the spirit of the people accorded with that manifested by the framers of our first constitution.

The "original design" in regard to education in Michigan is plainly shown by her constitution and laws. The very first act of her Territorial Legislature was to incorporate a university and a high school system. By an act of 1827, the system was supplemented by the establishment of common schools. Referring to this act of 1827, the supreme court of Michigan says:

This act is worthy of attention, as indicating what was understood at that day by the common schools which were proposed to be established. It provides that every township containing fifty families shall have a school for six months in each year, in which the instruction shall embrace reading, writing, the English and French languages, arithmetic, orthography, and decent behavior; and every township containing one hundred families shall have a school for twelve months in the year, and townships numbering two hundred families shall be provided with a grammar school master, of good morals, well instructed in the Latin, French, and English languages, and shall, in addition, be provided with a teacher to instruct in the English language. The townships were required, under a heavy penalty, to be levied in case of default on the inhabitants generally, to maintain the schools so provided for.―(Code of 1827, p. 448; Territorial Laws, vol. 2, p. 472.)

This act leaves no room for doubt that grammar schools were understood in the same sense as in England and the Eastern States, and were intended to be schools where instruction should be given in the classics as well as in the higher branches of learning not usually taught in the schools of lowest grade. How, then, is it possible to say that the term common schools, as used in our legislation, has a definite meaning which limits it to the ordinary district schools, and that, consequently, taxation for their benefit cannot be made to embrace schools supported by village and city districts in which a higher grade of learning is imparted ?

An inspection of the first constitution of Michigan leaves no doubt that its framers designed that the State should support high schools with a liberal hand.

The framers of the earlier constitutions of most of the Northern States held the same broad views, and so expressed them in the instruments which they made. The “original design" of the founders of our school systems did not contemplate a limitation to the merest rudiments of knowledge. They declared with singular unanimity that learning and wisdom generally diffused among the masses are essential to liberty, and that it is the duty of the State to forever establish and encourage schools, colleges, seminaries of learning, &c., for the education of the people. A limitation of public education to a few primary branches would be a departure from original design and not an adherence to it.