A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. Merrill, their Clerk:

MR. PRESIDENT:-The House of Representatives concur with the Senate, and adopt the amendment to the resolution providing for a Joint Assembly to elect a Secretary of State, and an Auditor of Accounts against the State, for the year ensuing.

The House also concur with the Senate in passing the resolution providing for a Joint Committee to prepare and report Joint Rules of the two Houses, and have appointed Mr. Swift and Mr. Kellogg, as the Committee on their part.

A message from the Governor, by Mr. Beaman, Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs :

MR. PRESIDENT-I am directed by the Governor to transmit to the Senate the annual Executive Message to the General Assembly.

The message of the Governor was thereupon read, and is as follows: Fellow citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

The guardianship of the interests of this Commonwealth, which fall within the province of its civil government, has, by the favor of Provi dence, been committed to us; and we come together for the purpose of its execution. If we would discharge, in the best manner, the duties it involves, we shall begin and end every thing, with a recognition of our dependence upon Him" from whom all good counsels and all just works proceed;" while his claims upon our fidelity to Himself, will become an ever-present incentive to fidelity in the service of the people we represent,

The year which is drawing toward a close has been one of prosper ity to our people. Though threatened drought has repeatedly filled them with apprehension and alarm, they have finally been permitted to reap an abundant harvest,-thus happily finding increased motives to gratitude, in deliverances from impending danger, rendered the more impressive by strong contrast with less favored portions of our country. A great trust has been committed to us, as the constituted guardians of the interests of this people. If, in the struggles connected with the election which has sent us here, we have suffered unworthy passions to gain an ascendency, as they too often do in political contests, we cannot come here and enter upon the sober work of surveying our responsibilities, without dismissing them all, taking each other by the hand as fellow-citizens and brethren, and striving together for the faith of our fathers, and the furtherance of the great ends for which they established the government we have been appointed to administer. How shall we best accomplish these ends within the brief space of our annual session? is a question to which you will allow me briefly to invite your attention.

The institution of civil government is designed to become an actively beneficent agency. The restraint of force is far from being its only object. Excepting in governments purely arbitrary, law derives its energy from a force extraneous to itself the force of a deep and abiding sentiment of veneration for law a love of order-habitual self-restraint -elevation and purity of moral feeling, and intelligence to guide it wisely in the complicated affairs of human life.

Civil government, then, accomplishes its object, not when it punishes crime, but when it prevents its commission,-not by providing jails

and penitentiaries, but by preventing the necessity of their existence; by training the people, as far as law can properly interpose its power, to intelligence and the love of virtue. The fathers of our State felt this, when, with characteristic wisdom, they declared in the constitution, that "laws for the encouragement of virtue and the prevention of vice and immorality ought to be constantly kept in force and duly executed; and a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town, for the convenient instruction of youth, and one or more grammar schools be incorporated and properly supported in each county in the State." Thus were the encouragement of virtue, the suppres sion of vice, and the maintenance of schools, deemed so vital to the welfare of the State, as to demand for them a special provision in its organic law.

So large a portion of my first annual message to the General Assembly was devoted to the subject of education, that I deem it necessary to do little more now than refer you, as I most respectfully do, to that message, for my views in regard to it.

The present has been truly denominated an age of progress. The human mind is vigorously seizing, and carrying out to practical results, the momentous truths which respect the relations of men to each other, and the appropriate means of accomplishing the purposes of human society and government. At the foundation of this vast movement lies the great work of Education-the work of developing and giving a right direction to mental and moral power. And if human government is to be regarded as an institution designed to perfect the purposes of society, and improve the condition of man upon earth, it needs no, labored argument to show, that education, thus defined, is among the highest duties of those entrusted with its administration.

Nor should it be forgotten that there are rights correlative to this duty. Every child in the State has a right to be educated-a right as essentially reciprocal to the claim of the State to allegiance, as is the right to protection. The question whether the children of a State shall be educated, is no more a question of mere expediency, than is the question whether the people have a right to protection from foreign aggression and domestic violence. Indeed, protection from the effects of ignorance and vice is, itself, protection, in the highest sense, from all the dangers which can arise within the limits of a State. Would we have obedience to law? Let the children be learned, in the common school, as well as at the domestic fireside, the duty of self-control, and of reverence for the law of eternal rectitude written in the word of God; while the development, in just and harmonious proportions, of their whole mind, shall give them, at once, a conscious sense of the worth of mind, and an intelligent conviction of the great purposes it is. fitted to accomplish.

All the children in Vermont-especially the children of the poorstand in the attitude of just claimants, in respect to education, upon the fostering bounty and guardian care of the State. And what has Vermont done to satisfy this claim? We have, indeed, declared, by law, that each organized town shall keep and support one or more schools, provided with competent teachers;" that the towns shall be divided into school districts; that certain district officers shall be appointed; that taxes shall be assessed and collected to build school houses and support schools; and that, to the income arising from these

taxes there shall be added, for the current use of schools, the annually accruing interest of the surplus revenue of the United States, deposited with this State. And here, with the exception of making provision for certain returns of school statistics, we have left the matter. If school houses are built, we have taken no care whatever for their proper location or construction; and if teachers are employed, we have done nothing in regard to the all-important matter of their qualifications, aside from the barren enactment that they shall be "competent." What shall constitute competency, or who shall judge of it, are matters entirely overlooked in our legislation. The result is, an admitted and lamentable deficiency in the qualifications of teachers; great and manifest defects in the modes of instruction, and confusion and want of uniformity in regard to the books used for that purpose; while a large propor tion of our school houses are located in highways, with little regard to comfort or fitness in their internal structure, and as little to taste and beauty, and convenience, in the grounds connected with them; if, indeed, any grounds but those of highways are thus connected. And yet, what an amount of money is annually expended for the use of schools. To say nothing of the amount expended in the construction of school houses-of which we have no means of forming an estimate ―let us look at the expenditure for teaching.

From the statistics returned to me last year, from 159 of the 240 towns in the State, 1 drew the conclusion in my report to the General Assembly, that there was paid to teachers in the whole State, exclusive of teachers of select schools-from which there were no returns-the sum of $128,000 annually. No one can soberly consider this subject, without feeling painfully impressed with a conviction of the utter waste of a very great portion of this large sum. It is not extravagant to say, that its power for good might have been doubled, and more than doubled, if it had been expended under a system of supervision which should have carried into the schools, teachers fully competent, and modes of instruction founded upon the true philosophy of mind, and a practical acquaintance with the means best adapted to its true and proper education. We do not so much need, at the present moment, additional pecuniary means, as we do a system adapted to give greater efficacy to those already possessed, a system which shall give a right direction to effort, and make it effectual to the proper education of the children of the State. The whole, so far as the aid of legislation may be properly invoked, is comprehended in the pregnant words-Supervis ion-Responsibility. We have now nothing that deserves the name of either. We have provided, indeed, for the organization of districts, and the employment of teachers by their prudential committees, who are authorized and required to “adopt measures for the inspection, examination, and regulation of the schools, and the improvement of the scholars in learning." But experience has shown, abundantly, that all this is unavailing to the purpose of securing a proper examination, or indeed any examination, of teachers, or a proper supervision of the schools, or to awaken that interest in their improvement, among parents and throughout the community, which is as indispensable to their vigorous health and prosperity, as a pure and bracing atmosphere is to the support of human life.

We want a system of supervision which shall make the power of beneficent legislation felt, through competent and discreet agencies, in eve

ry district, and by every child, in the State. Shall we have it? That is the question; and it presses upon us more urgently than any other question within the range of our legislative duties. We cannot avoid its consideration. The States around us are moving onward in the work of improvement; and so urgent have been considered the claims of common schools upon legislative patronage,-so manifest the defects of old systems of supervision and instruction, and so common and universal the benefits to be derived from improvements in both, that party spirit has stood silent in presence of this great question, and all classes and all parties have made common cause in the noble work of educational improvement.

The expense of carrying into effect a system of adequate supervision need not be great, while its benefits will be inappreciable. Dollars and cents cannot measure their value. We readily make investments in railroads, and other improvements, which promise a return of pecuniary profit; but what are such investments, in comparison with those which, in the process of educating a community to virtue and intelligence, infuse into it the great and indispensable elements of solid and enduring prosperity.

I commend this whole subject to your earnest consideration, under a full persuasion that an awakened and greatly advanced public sentiment will respond a hearty approval to your favorable action on it.

I cannot leave the subject of common schools without devoting a few moments attention to what is familiarly denominated "the School Fund." The foundation of this fund was laid in 1825, when the General Assembly passed an act sequestering and granting to the respective towns in the State, for the benefit of common schools, the amount of the avails, accrued, and thereafter to accrue, to the State, from the Vermont State Bank, and also the amount of the State funds accruing from the six per cent. on the nett profits of the banks, received and to be received, and the amount received and to be received from licenses to pedlars. It was provided that said funds, with the an nually accruing interest, should be "invested in approved bank stocks, or other productive securities," and should not be appropriated to the use of schools, until the amount should increase to a sum, whose annual interest should be adequate to defray the expenses of keeping a good free common school, in each district in the State, for the period of two months.

The State Treasurer was constituted a commissioner for the management of the fund; who thereupon proceeded to invest the same, by loans, for the purpose contemplated in the act.

By an act passed in the year 1833, further loans from the fund were prohibited, and the Treasurer was directed to deposit the same in the treasury, as it should be received, and to keep an account thereof, and annually charge the State with the interest on the money thus deposited-which, it was declared, "shall be considered as borrowed from the fund ;" and the Treasurer was "authorized and directed to pay out said money on any appropriations authorized by law."

Under the operation of this act, and principally in connection with the expenditure of $117,000 for the erection of the State House, the State, from time to time, has become indebted to this fund, until the indebtedness now. amounts, including the accumulations of interest, to

the sum of $224,309 50, while there is due to it from individuals, the sum of $10,590 94; making an aggregate of $234,900 44.

The expediency of continuing this fund has long been questioned. Upon full consideration, I deem it my duty to bring the subject to your notice, and to submit the question, whether any present or prospective interest of the people requires that it be continued.

The first question to be considered is, when will the fund become available for the use of schools; that is, when will the annually accruing interest be" adequate to defray the expenses of keeping a good free common school, in each district in the State, for the period of two months."

The number of school districts in the 240 towns in the State-taking the returns of last year from 159 towns, which gave 1809 districts, as the basis of calculation-may be estimated at 2730. If it be assumed, for the purpose of the calculation, that, by the time the fund will become available, the number of the districts will have increased ten per cent. on the present number-which may be regarded as not an improbable increase within thirty-three years we shall have 3000 districts to be provided, from the avails of the fund, with a good school two months in each year. Estimating the expense of keeping such school two months, in the then advanced stage of educational improvement, at $40, there would be required the sum of $120,000, as the accruing interest of the fund, to render it available; which is the interest, at six per cent. on $2,000,000.

The question now arises-within what time will the fund probably accumulate to $2,000,000? Its present amount is $234,900 44-the annual interest on which, at six per cent., is $14,094 02. The average annual income from the six per cent. of bank profits, for the last six years, has been $3,669 86; and from pedlar's licenses $1,146 52; amounting to $4,816 38; which may be assumed as the annual addition to the fund, hereafter, from these sources. The avails of the Vermont State Bank have nearly ceased to add anything to the fund, and should not be made the basis of any calculation for the future.

We have, then, the elements of the calculation, namely, the present amount of the fund, the interest thereon for one year, and the probable annual income from the bank tax and pedlar's licenses. The process

of accumulation by annually compounding the interest, according to the act constituting the fund, will produce $2,000,387 79 on the first of January, 1878; so that the children who shall be in life in that year, will reap the first fruits of the fund, if it shall be so long continued. This assumes, however, the doubtful position, that six per cent. interest may be realized throughout the entire intervening period of thirtytwo years and three months, and makes no allowance for losses and the expense of managing the fund.

The great question is now presented-what, in reference to this fund, is our duty to the generation of 1878? Admitting, of course, that it is our duty to labor for the benefit of that generation, the question iswill that generation be really benefitted by a continuance of the fund? If we could send it forward to them, really invested in " approved bank stocks, or other productive securities," according to the law of 1825, they might, perhaps, be benefitted; though the expediency of accumu lating school funds, so large as to have the effect of relaxing personal efforts, begins to be questioned. But so far as we send them a fund,