consisting of a debt due from the State, we send them a fund entirely unproductive-a fund which, when it reaches them, will consist merely in their indebtedness to themselves. If we would make it otherwise. we must tax the people of this generation to an amount sufficient to extinguish the indebtedness of the State to the fund; and having thus drawn the amount from the pockets of the people, invest it in " productive securities," and, in that condition, send it forward to the generation of 1878. But who is prepared to do this? Who will vote for such a tax? None, it may be confidently affirmed. Nor, it may be affirmed with equal confidence, will our successors be willing to do it, five, ten, twenty, or thirty years hence, when the indebtedness of the State shall, by the compounding of interest, have become greatly increased. Of what benefit, then, will the fund be to them, unless it can, by some fiscal magic, be made spontaneously to yield the interest, and pour it into the treasuries of the towns for the use of schools?

The whole operation, so far as it purposes to benefit the generation of 1878, is a delusion. It is the people borrowing of themselves, and adding the annual interest to debt against themselves, and sending this accumulated indebtedness forward to become the indebtedness of a generation thirty-three years hence, for the purpose of benefitting that generation. The truth is, that, instead of sending them a benefit we shall send them a burden, which, if wise, they will, by abolishing the fund, shake off; namely, the burden, if they would carry the act constituting the fund into effect-of raising the interest on it by direct taxation, to be paid into the State treasury, minus the expense of collection, for the purpose of being sent by the commissioner of the fund back to the people, to be expended for the use of schools. It will not be very unnatural for the tax-payers of that day to enquire, why they should support their schools by such a complicated and expensive process, rather than by the simple and cheaper one of taxing themselves for the purpose, in their respective towns or districts.

If future generations would not be benefitted by this fund, neither will the present. This is self-evident. Why, then, continue it?

In these remarks I am understood, of course, to have spoken of that part of the fund which consists of the indebtedness of the State, amounting at this time, to the sum of $224,309 50. An act to annul this indebtedness, would leave to be disposed of, the sum of $10,590 94, invested in individual securities, bearing interest. None would think of suffering this sum to accumulate, even with the addition of the six per cent. on bank profits, and the income from pedlar's licenses, with a view of making them available for schools, under the act of 1825.

The demand for funds to aid in putting in operation a system of common school improvement, such as the State needs and public sentiment evidently demands, suggests the direction which might be given to a part, or all, of these sources of income, when released from their present connection. It is believed that the annually accruing interest on that portion of the present school fund loaned on private securities, together with the annual income from pedlar's licenses, would be sufficient for that purpose. We may thus institute a system of Supervision and Accountability, which shall give concentration and energy to the present efforts to raise the standard and multiply the facilities of education, until the minds of the mass of our children-the happy mingling of the poor and the rich together-shall feel its equalizing and elevating

power. Thus, while conferring substantial benefits on the present generation, we may send forward an influence, which shall flow on, in a continually widening stream of benefits and blessings, to the generations that shall succeed us to the end of time.

Should it be found that no interest of the present, or of future generations, can be benefitted by a continuance of the State indebtedness to the fund of which I have spoken, and the indebtedness should be cancelled, the State debt would then stand as follows: Due the safety fund banks, including interest to Oct. 1,

Due the surplus fund,

Deduct the amount loaned out the past year,

Salaries due, Oct. 1,

$30,389 81

$14,812 28

11,004 00

3,808 28

1,108 33

Due to towns for interest on surplus fund,

Total,

444 36

$35,750 78

The balance in the Treasury on the 13th of September was $18,417 97 Balance of taxes due,

Total,

23,232 50

$41,650 47

To what extent the service of the coming year-a portion of which necessarily constitutes a draft on the present balances in the treasury and on taxes-will permit the application of a part of those balances towards the extinguishment of the indebtedness of the State, may be determined, upon the careful examination which ought to be made into every branch of expenditure, with a view to ascertain whether there can be any reduction, consistently with the public interest. In looking at the expenditures of past years, I have been struck with the large amount disbursed under the heads of "Supreme and County Court orders," and "Clerks of Courts for the expenses of Supreme and County Courts," which have risen from $20,405, in 1839, to $28,970, in 1845. The amount disbursed under these heads during the last seven years, been $184,300, averaging $26,328 per annum. has propriety of an examination into the details of these large items of exI would suggest the penditure-in regard to which it may possibly be found that, in a course of years, abuses have crept in, requiring corrective legislation.

The treasury is happily relieved from a charge which, for many years, hung upon it, in the form of "military orders," which, for the five years previous to and including the year 1843, when they ceased to be a draft on the treasury, amounted to the sum of $18,501. I am happy to say, that, by a law of last year, the people are relieved from the still more burdensome tax of annual trainings of the enrolled militia.

It may be reasonably hoped that, by a practicable and not injurious reduction of expenditures, particularly in the heavy items to which I have referred, a sum may be saved which, with a fixed appropriation of the income from the bank tax-relieved from its present pledge to the school fund-might, within a moderate period, extinguish the entire indebtedness of the State.

The reference I have made to the items of expenditure in connection with the Supreme and County Courts-a large portion of which results from criminal prosecutions suggests a topic of much interest, to which I would call your attention.

The great purpose of criminal law is reformation. This purpose lies at the foundation of the Penitentiary system, which combines with imprisonment, hard labor, and a course of moral discipline suited to bring back offenders to the paths of rectitude and virtue. But this system is applicable, under our laws, only to the higher offences, leaving a large class of offenders without the benefit of any such reforming process, and substituting for it, confinement in the county jails-in some cases, with the alternative of the payment into the county or town treasuries, for non-payment of which imprisonment necessarily follows. Whether confinement in the county jails is inflicted as a punishment, or results from inability to pay fines, it obviously has an effect entirely the reverse of reformation. It is impossible to visit a conviet, thus thrown into a county jail, with little or no attention to any except his mere animal wants, without feeling painfully impressed with a conviction, that it is an unnatural and monstrous perversion of the power of punishment. Without employment or exercise, the convict is left to the corroding and maddening influence of the reflection that he is an outcast from the charity and sympathy of the world; and that the law and its executioners are alike his enemies. Every moment's continuance of such confinement tends to weaken his purposes of amendment, and prepare him for abandonment to the commission of higher offences. There are cases in which this is not true; but they constitute the exception and not the rule. If the history of all the State Prison convicts were fully disclosed, it would probably be found that a large portion of them have been tenants of county jails, in punishment for inferior offences.

The remedy for this evil is obvious. It is the application of the principle of penitentiary discipline to minor offences, by means of Houses of Correction in each county-to be made comfortable in their structure and accommodations, and to be connected with such arrangements for the profitable employment of the inmates, and the exercise of such firm and steady discipline, as sound wisdom and the spirit of Christian kindness may suggest. By such means may offenders be made useful to the public during the necessary continuance of their confinement, while the higher purpose shall be answered, of impressing upon their minds, by every thing they shall see around them, that they are menbound to society, not by the law of force merely, but by the higher law of moral obligation, as well as by the sympathies of our common na

ture.

Such a course of treatment would, doubtless, have a very happy influence upon "vagrants and idle and disorderly persons," for whose restraint and discipline our laws make no provision, save that of the town poor houses, which, by the 21st section of chapter 17 of the Revised Statutes, are constituted Houses of Correction,but which, while they involve the evil of an unnatural mingling of the aged and infirm poor with the restive and troublesome, can seldom be made to accomplish, to any considerable extent, the purposes of correction and reform.

The bearing upon our whole system of criminal justice, of such a process of discipline as may be carried into effect in county houses of correction-especially in the cases of juvenile offenders-is obvious.Its salutary effects would, in due time, be visible in diminished drafts upon the State Treasury for the expenses of criminal proceedings; in a

diminished number of convicts in the State Prison, and in increasing peace, order and obedience to law, throughout the community.

I have received the ninth annual report of the Trustees and Super. intendent of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, which presents a very gratifying exhibition of the condition and prospects of that institution, under its present excellent and efficient government.

During the past year 294 have been admitted into the Asylum, 99 have been discharged, and 263 remain. Three hundred and sixty-three have enjoyed the benefits of the Asylum within the entire year. Of the 99 discharged, 59 have recovered. Of the 48" charged, there have been 43 recoveries. In the 51 chronic cases disrecent cases 27 discharged, the recoveries have been but 16. The great importance of obtaining the benefit of the Asylum in the early stages of insanity, is thus rendered apparent.

The annual State appropriation for the benefit of the insane poor was increased, at the last session of the General Assembly, to $3,000; in consequence of which the number of patients at the Asylum has increased during the past year, so as to render the erection of additional buildings necessary. Additional buildings, to contain about 80 rooms, are partly finished and occupied, and will, it is expected, be completed by the first of November next, when all the buildings will be sufficient for the accommodation of about 300 patients-a number deemed by the Trustees to be as large as is desirable in one asylum.

The report states that such an amount of funds will be received from other sources, as to supersede the necessity of an application to the Legislature for assistance to defray the expense of the additional accommodations.

Since the first of January last, 137 patients have shared in the State appropriation, of whom 19 have been discharged; leaving of these cases, 118 now in the Asylum. The existing State appropriation has paid a little more than three fifths of the expense of those who have been in the Asylum, as State beneficiaries, during the past year; leaving the remainder to be paid by those who sent them there; and it is estimated by the Trustees that the appropriation will be adequate to defray, during the next year, but one-third of the expense of the present number of State beneficiaries. They suggest the desirableness of an increased appropriation, so as to defray nearly one-half the expense of that num. ber. I concur in this suggestion. An increased appropriation would probably have the effect of inducing towns to place, and keep, at the Asylum, insane poor persons who might otherwise be deprived of its benefits. There is a class of cases in which entire recovery might be effected by a continuance beyond the limit of the present State appropriation, when a restriction to that limit might render the appropriation, as to them, of little value. It is very desirable that the insane poor should not, through insufficient inducement to towns to continue them at the Asylum, be returned uncured to the miserable condition which, through the humanity of our legislation, they may have been permitted to exchange for the substantial comforts and the improving influence of that institution.

The establishment of the Asylum, with its excellent system of treatment, while it has had the effect of disclosing the terrible secrets of insanity, has gladdened the hearts of the benevolent with a reasonable hope of giving effectual relief to a large portion of the insane, and of

ministering greatly to the comfort of those who have by long neglect become incurable. No object, proper for legislative aid, makes a stronger appeal to our liberality than this.

Upon entering on the duties of Commissioner of the Deaf and Dumb, I directed inquiries to the Superintendent of the American Asylum at Hartford, Connecticut, for the purpose of obtaining information, in sundry particulars, in regard to the past connection of that institution with the education of deaf and dumb persons, at the expense of this State, and received, in reply, a statement specifying, agreeably to my request, the names and residence of persons, supported, in whole or in part, by this State-the times of their admission and discharge, the period of their instruction at the public expense, and the amount paid for each by the State. I transmit the statement herewith, to the House of Representatives, for the use of the General Assembly. It appears that from the year 1817, but principally since the year 1825, 113 have been educated, in whole or in part, by this State, at an expense, up to the 1st of May last, of the sum of $38,118 25.

I have made orders for the admission into the Asylum of 8. The whole number now in the Asylum, at the public charge, is 20. Of the appropriation for this object, there has been expended during the past year the sum of $1,960 91.

The Asylum is under a very competent and intelligent Superintendency, and is evidently deserving the continued patronage of the State.

In execution of my duty as Commissioner of the Blind, I have made orders for the admission of two blind persons into the New England Institution for the Blind, at Boston. The expenditure for the support of the blind during the past year, has been $1,120.

In execution of the law of the last session providing for a Geological Survey of the State, I appointed Prof. Charles B. Adams, of Middlebury, Principal Geologist. Mr. Adams entered on the duties of the appoint ment in March last; since which time he has been laboriously engaged, with the aid of well qualified assistants, in prosecuting a Geological and Mineralogical survey of the State. The law having made it the duty of the Geologist to report annually to the Governor the progress of the work, he has made to me his first annual report, which I shall hereafter communicate to both branches of the General Assembly.

The labors of the first year of the survey have been mainly and appropriately directed to a general reconnoisance of the State, for the purpose of determining its general geological features, including the limits of the several rock formations, preparatory to more minute investigations in subsequent years. How well this part of the survey has been performed, will appear in the report of the Geologist when submitted to you.— From a hasty examination of it, I have been led to believe that it will be found, by those competent to judge, to furnish evidence that the prosecution of the work thus far has well fulfilled the purpose for which the survey was instituted. The report will be found, I think, to contain more valuable information than is usually embodied in preliminary reports, especially in the department of economical geology, upon which, on account of its great practical importance, I have directed the Geologist to bestow special attention throughout the entire survey.

The report contains a statement of the expenses of the survey, brought down to the 15th of September, amounting to the sum of $1,336 22, and an estimate for the balance of the geological year ending on the