according to their plan will be impracticable; for many of the townships are too large to be associated with any other, for the purpose of educating the children that reside in them. Instead of making a new set of divisions of a local nature, for particular purposes, we would take the present counties and townships as they are established by law, and frame a bill for education suited to their condition. The law of 1809 has authorized county commissioners to draw on the county treasurer for defraying the charges of educating certain individuals; and without paying more money than they now do, or are authorized to do, the education of children may be made a general thing. The proposed bill is adapted only to the city and county of Philadelphia, whereas every section has as much need of a legal provision for the education of children as this highly favoured portion of the state. Something of general utility, and of a permanent character, ought to be attempted; for we have had enough of temporary schemes. The plan which we would suggest is the following:

1. Each township, city, and corporate borough in this commonwealth shall be a School District.

2. All the judges of courts with all the justices of the peace, and aldermen, resident in each and every county in the state, shall be warned by the sheriff of said county to convene on the first Monday in January in each year, at 10 o'clock, A. M. in the place of holding the county court for said county; and one third of their number being thus convened shall be a quorum for the transaction of business. These persons thus convened shall be styled the School Committee of the county; and the chief justice of the state if present, or in case of his absence, then the president judge of the court of common pleas, or in case of his absence, then the judge, the alderman or justice of the peace present, whose commission is of the oldest date, shall take the chair, call the School Committce to order, and appoint a clerk. The School Committee of each county being thus organized, shall proceed to appoint by the vote of a majority of the Committee present, for each person, five, seven, or nine freeholders for each city, township, and borough, within the county,

who shall be styled the School Commissioners of the city, township or borough to which they respectively belong. The clerk of the school committee and the acting chairman shall make out and respectively sign a certifi cate, directed to each school commissioner, of his appointment; and shall cause the same to be left at his place of residence within ten days after his appointment. The school committee of each county, shall, moreover, on the same day, decide by vote of the majority, what sums of money the county treasurer shall be authorized to pay for education, or the erection or repairing of school houses, in the course of the year ensuing on said decision; and shall by a certificate over the signatures of the chairman and clerk of said committee, serve the county commissioners of said county with a copy of their resolution on this subject. This business being transacted, the committee shall adjourn sine die.

3. The county commissioners of each county shall make a dividend of the sum granted by the school committee, to each township, city, or borough within said county, in proportion to the amount of the assessment last made in each township, city, or borough, before the first Monday in January in each year; and shall when requested so to do, certify to the school commissioners of each township, city or borough, within the county, what sum of money they are entitled to receive in the course of the year.

4. The school commissioners being thus appointed for each school district, shall be convened by the School commissioner, first appointed, or in case of his decease or absence by the one next appointed, at such time and place as he may choose. Any three of said school commissioners, where there are five; or any five, where there are seven; and any seven where there are nine, shall erect or repair school-houses, if they judge it necessary, in in places they may procure in their respective districts; shall examine and employ teachers, shall inspect all the schools under their care at least semi-annually, and shall discharge those teachers whom they find to be incompetent. For the purpose of paying teachers, or for erecting and repairing school-houses, they shall preVOL. I.

sent orders for any sum or sums not exceeding in all, the amount to which their district is entitled for the year, to the county commissioners; and said county commissioners shall draw for the same on the county treasurer in the mode prescribed by law.

5. In any school district in which there is but one school under the superintendence of the school commis. sioners, all children between the ages of five and fifteen, resident in the district, shall have the right of attending, and according to their age and capacity, shall have equa privileges. In any district in which the school commissioners shall deem it expedient to establish two or more schools, they shall divide the district into as many school wards as they establish schools, and every child within the aforesaid ages, resident in a school ward, shall be entitled to all the rights and privileges of the school within said ward.

6. School commissioners during the time of their being in office, shall be exempted from performing duty as jurors and arbitrators, but neither they nor the school committee, shall be entitled to pecuniary compensation for their services.

It would render our plan more truly republican, should the sheriff of each county warn, as in case of the elections of representatives, all the qualified electors to bring in to the inspectors the names of twenty-five persons resident in the county, who should meet within ten days after their election, appoint their own chairman and clerk, de. cide how much should be paid out of the treasury of the county for education, in the ensuing year, and proceed to declare, according to the ratio of the last completed assessment, the proportion of said sum to which each school district should be entitled. Let this same school committee also decide how many school commissioners shall be elected in each district within the county; whether five, seven, or nine.

Then let the constable of each town, borough, or city, at the time and place for electing assessors and other town officers, annually warn all the legal electors in the town, borough, or city, of which he is the public organ, to give in their votes, for five, seven, or nine School

commissioners, according to the last decision of the committee in the case, who shall hold their office until their successors are elected, and shall have the powers already described.

The report of Mr. Reed of Westmoreland to the Senate of Pennsylvania, from the committee on education, proves that our Legislature entertains some right apprehension of the importance of this subject. The report well observes, that

"In a government where the public are the fountain of all power, a general diffusion of knowledge is essential to a proper and permanent exercise of it. The benign influences of religion which form the basis of every good government, if unsupported by an improvement of the noble faculties of mind with which the Creator has endowed the creature, will be but partially felt in society. And those moral principles which dictate the reciprocal duties of individuals, grow in strength, in the same ratio with the progress of learning and civilization."

The plan subjoined to this sensible report proposes, "that cities, towns, and counties embracing one hundred families within a mile square, shall not be embraced within the above provisions." Of course the multitudes of indigent children in populous places would have no better provision than at present exists. This partial plan will never answer; neither is it well to make legal distinctions between the poor and the rich. We commend the the object of Mr. Reed, which is, to aid the less populous and wealthy counties from the state treasury; and this may be done in perfect consistency with our general system. Should no other provision be made by the State, the county commissioners of certain counties named in the act, might be authorized during the continuance of the act, to draw upon the state treasury for a specified sum, which should be regulated by the census of those counties, which have no thickly inhabited places. This sum the county commissioners should add to the sum appropriated by the school committee, and divide it among the school commissioners of districts, in the manner above provided. This assistance from the state would induce the poorer counties to help themselves; so

that education in either the English, German or Welch language would be generally diffused.

This plan in the essential features of it, corresponds with that recommended in the report on our table; and should it be carried into operation, every child in the commonwealth would have the opportunity of acquiring a good common education; while parents would no longer have the trouble, or be at the expense, of hunting up a school for their offspring every quarter. In each of these schools, reading, writing, spelling, grammar, arithmetic and geography should be taught; and those parents who wish their children instructed in other branches of science, would of course establish private subscription schools and seminaries. This would provide for indigent children most effectually, without inviduously separating them from the rest of society, to be stigmatized as paupers.

As education is now managed, much time and money are thrown away; and many teachers who are wholly incompetent to the work which they have undertaken, gull the community. In Pennsylvania, an adventurer sets up a school, as he would open a grocery store, by hanging out a sign; and we have positively read more than once, on a tin plate at the door," Education teacht here;" which we suppose a very good specimen of the learning of the instructor within. The public can have no security that the greatest blockheads which come along will not continue to open their "seminaries," until some constituted authority shall examine into their ability to teach, and their certificates of moral character.

It is more important that the Legislature of the State should create a fund to aid common schools, than that they should endow colleges. It would do honour to this member of the great American family of republics, should the duties on auctions for a certain time, or some round sum, according to the recommendation of the late governor Snyder, be appropriated to form a school fund, the yearly income of which should be annually divided among the counties and then among the school districts, in proportion to the amount of the assessments in each. Such a fund the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts have, and in each it greatly assists all the