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The Executive Committee made these measures a subject of earnest consideration, and, at the February meeting, submitted a report to the board, together with an address to the public, relative thereto. The report recommended an additional tax of half a mill on a dollar on the real and personal estate in the city and county, which, at the valuation of that year, would have yielded about $50,000. This sum, with the income enjoyed by the Society at the time, it was estimated would be sufficient to add three new school-houses annually to the number in existence, and enable the Society to educate all classes free of expense, as well as to establish a high school and an academy, or classical seminary, for the preparation of teachers. The report is substantially incorporated, in its arguments and facts, in the address. to the public which was submitted at the same time, and which was ordered to be printed and circulated. This address develops the germ of many of the plans and measures which have since that time been made a part of the system of popular education in the city, and is valuable as a presentation of the philanthropic and enlarged views which were realized years afterward in part by the Society, but more fully under the change of system in 1842, when the Board of Education was organized. For these reasons, as well as for its own interest, the address is here inserted:

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC.

The Trustees of the Public School Society feel constrained to appeal to their fellow-citizens upon the importance of enlarging the means of common education. A full knowledge of our condition cannot but produce a universal conviction that our present system of instruction is inadequate to our wants.

There is no part of our State which has the means of more ample endowments for public instruction, nor is there any part of it where the common welfare, not to say the common safety, so imperatively demands them; and yet we are compelled to confess that there is not within the State a single district of any magnitude with which we could institute a favorable comparison.

It is an object of primary importance to ascertain, as nearly as may be, the number of our children within the proper ages for instruction, who are entirely destitute of it. It is impossible, with the data which we possess, to arrive at a precisely accurate result; but it will be perceived by the following statement, that if we have fallen into an error, it is not that of exaggeration.

Provision is made by law for ascertaining, in all other parts of the State, the number of children between the ages of 5 and 15, and also the whole

number annually instructed; and it is much to be regretted that it does not extend to this city. It appears, by the report of the Secretary of State for 1827, that, in other parts of the State, the ratio of scholars in the public and other schools to the whole population was 1 to 5, 1 to 4, and 1 to 3 ; and that these are about the average ratios which prevail throughout the State, with the exception of this city. In this city, this ratio is less than 1 to 7, supposing the population to have advanced with the same rapidity since 1825 as in the preceding five years.

If we adopt for our city the proportion furnished by the above report, and founded upon actual official returns, between the whole population and the children within the ages above mentioned, the result will be, that we had 45,300 of these children in 1825, when our population was but 166,000. If the increase of our population since 1825 has been in the same ratio as from 1820 to 1825, we must add to this number of children more than 7,000, making the whole number 52,300. About 10,000 children are taught at our public and charity schools. It was ascertained by a committee of teachers, about four or five years since, that we had 200 male schools. It is a liberal allowance to suppose the female schools equally numerous. If we add to these numbers 100 schools, and allow 35 scholars to each school-which we are persuaded is an over-estimate-we have 17,500 for the private schools.*

We have no means of ascertaining the number of Sunday scholars who go to no other schools; but it is evident that this number cannot be large, because the whole number of scholars in the Sunday schools does not exceed that in the public schools by more than 2,000, and because we know that a large proportion of Sunday scholars attend private schools.

From the best inquiries we have been able to make, the number of those scholars who attend no other schools does not exceed one in twenty, or 600 in the whole.

The result of these estimates is, that we have twenty-four thousand two hundred children, within the ages of 5 and 15, who attend no school what

ever.

A large number of children, principally boys, are taken from school as soon as they arrive at 14, and some even at 12 years of age, to be bound out to service, and others are withdrawn even at 10 years of age, for other purposes. If we allow one half of the whole number above mentioned to have been withdrawn from school before the age of 15-though perhaps one third would be nearer the truth-the result will be as follows:

Whole number of children between 5 and 15 years of age,

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52,300

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600 V

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* This estimate corresponds with the opinions of those best acquainted with this

subject.

TWELVE THOUSAND CHILDREN, between five and fifteen years of age, entirely destitute of the means of instruction!

This computation leaves out of view all those children of tenderer years who ought to be introduced into infant schools.

The diversity, magnitude, and character of our population give to this subject a deeper interest here than it can have elsewhere. The single fact that 20,000 emigrants arrived within our city during the past year, presents this subject in a sufficiently striking point of view.

Believing that the relative importance of our city in the State and national councils-that the security of our rights, of our property, nay, of our lives, depends upon the character of the people, and essentially upon their intelligence, the trustees cannot, under the present state of things, suppress their anxiety and alarm.

In many of our sister States, the deep interest of the people in common education may be traced back to the very fountain of their earliest institutions. They regarded the proposition, that our republican institutions rest upon the general intelligence and virtue of the people, as something more than a mere theory. In our own State, the towns in the several counties have been authorized to provide, by taxation, for the erection of schoolhouses, and "for fuel and appendages," and have also been empowered to levy, in the same way, a limited amount annually over and above the sum necessary, to secure a participation in the common school fund. In the city of New York there is no legal provision whatever for the support of common schools, except from the State fund; and that is on the condition that the city shall raise an amount equal to that received.

It is time for us to pause, and inquire whether this subject has yet received the consideration to which it is entitled, and whether our public schools occupy their merited station among our political institutions.

It appears to the trustees that the due order of things has been inverted -that our common schools are not the proper objects of a parsimonious policy, but are entitled to an endowment not less munificent than the best of our institutions. Neither the sick nor the destitute have higher claims upon us than the ignorant. The want of knowledge is the most imperative of all wants, for it brings all others in its train. If education be regarded as a charity, it is the only one whose blessings are without alloy. It demands no jealous scrutiny as to the claims of its applicants, nor does it require to be so stinted as not to multiply their number. The obligations which rest upon us in regard to this great interest, both as men and Christians, are sufficiently obvious and imposing. To these are to be added the peculiar claims which are addressed to us as the citizens of a free country. If we would preserve our free institutions, the means of education must be coëxtensive with the right of suffrage.

Although the knowledge of an individual may not always be accompanied with corresponding virtue, yet we hold it to be certain that, politically considered, the, community will always be more or less virtuous as they are more or less enlightened. All private interests harmonize in the public good; and the more clearly this is perceived, the more will a single view to

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