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APPENDIX.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR.

THE Committee appointed by His Excellency the Governor, in conformity with a Resolution adopted by the Legislature on the 3d of Nov., 1841, "to report such plan or plans as may be most expedient and judicious to carry into practical effect the views and suggestions contained in the Report of the Committee on Education,"-beg leave to submit to the Legislature the following:

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The Report to which your committee are referred by the resolution under which they act, begins with a reference to the Executive Message, showing a very happy agreement between the Executive and the Legislature, in regard to the general principles and objects that ought to be kept in view in all public acts touching the vital interests of education; and on comparing the two documents, it is gratifying to find those principles and objects so definitely fixed and so distinctly recognized. The appointment of your committee, and the assignment of its duties, intimates clearly enough that, in the opinion of the Legislature, the time for definitive action has arrived, when we ought to enter with all proper diligence upon a course of measures which shall result in the establishment of a complete system of education for the State. The leading principles recognized in the Report, and by the Legislature in adopting it, are,

That the education of the people is an interest second in importance to no other which the hand of government touches, and indeed paramount to them all.

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That such a system of education, in all its branches and departments, ought to be encouraged by liberal legislation, as shall render the people of Vermont not inferior to any other in intellectual and moral culture :-and

That, to accomplish this, not only ought district schools to receive the anxious care of the Legislature, but academies and colleges should also receive the patronage of the State; and that all classes of schools and seminaries should be so

provided for and regulated as to unite them in one complete system, and give them the greatest possible efficiency for the elevation of the whole people.

Yet, although these principles are so distinctly recognized as the basis of all contemplated action, your committee have felt themselves somewhat embarrassed by doubts respecting the nature and extent of the plan or plans for carrying into practical effect the views of the Legislature,—that might be expected from them. The inquiry arose whether they should. attempt to prepare an outline of a complete system of education for the State, embracing all the details of pecuniary aid, of regulation, supervision, and accountability for all classes of schools requisite to a complete system; or whether the end of our appointinent would not be better attained, if, leaving that in a great measure untouched, we were merely to suggest some initiatory measures,-a plan for entering rightly upon such a course of improvement as shall promise ultimately to secure all that the Report contemplates. Several considerations have led your committee to adopt the latter

course.

In the first place, the Report assumes as certain the early possession of ample funds for the immediate prosecution of any judicious plan which the Legislature, in its wisdom, might adopt. It was expected that the State, before this time, would have received something from the proceeds of the public lands, and that those lands would constitute a permanent source of revenue applicable to the purposes of education. This expectation evidently had a very great influence upon the course adopted by the Legislature last year. But thus far it has been disappointed; and the history of the past year does not encourage the belief that it would be wise or safe to make it the basis of future action in regard to so vital an interest. Nor have your committee been able to devise any plan for supplying the place of the funds alluded to, which they could rely upon as likely, at present, to command general assent, and thus constitute a safe element in the system which they might recommend.

Again, it was the expectation of the Legislature that, in the course of the year, the subject would attract such attention, and be so thoroughly discussed in the newspapers, as to prepare the public mind for definitive action. For this purpose the publication of the Report co-extensively with the

laws was ordered, and discussion invited. But your committee regret to say that the subject seems not to have awakened any general and deep interest; and that, instead of the general and earnest discussion in all quarters, which its paramount importance deserves, almost nothing has been said about it in the newspapers; and only by a single writer in one of them, we believe, has anything like a general view of it -much less a thorough discussion-been attempted. These facts--to whatever cause they may be attributed,―certainly do not indicate that, as a community, we are ready to adopt, definitively and in all its extent, a plan of State education such as the Legislature contemplated as an ultimate object.

Besides, were these objections to the immediate settlement and adoption of a complete State system of education removed, your committee acknowledge that, in the few months which have elapsed since their appointment, they have not been able to satisfy themselves in regard to all the questions involved in such a system. Even in regard to common schools, several questions of very great importance still remain matters of experiment and discussion in States that have devoted to the subject far more attention than ourselves. In regard to these, their experience does not yet furnish results on which we can confidently rely in all respects; while in regard to the proper relation of schools and seminaries of different grades to each other, and of the government to all, they give us still less aid in the way either of experience or plan.

On the whole, therefore, your committee have thought that they should best meet the wishes of the Legislature by declining the attempt to report a complete system of education for the State, and limiting themselves to the humbler task of suggesting such preparatory measures as are of immediate importance. Happily these preparatory measures are very clearly indicated by our own condition, and by the experience of our sister states.

-In looking at our own condition we find that, while education is acknowledged to be the paramount interest of the State, and while the amount of funds expended in it is immense, there is hardly the shadow of supervision and accountability in regard to it. A third part of all the inhabitants of the State are connected, as teachers and pupils, with our schools, every year; and that too in the very budding time of life, when every thing that touches the intellect or the af

fections exerts a mighty energy in fixing the permanent character of the individual, and thus of the community. If the moral influence of a school is bad-if the instruction is erroneous or defective-if the school-room and its arrangement are unpleasant and unhealthy-the effect is seen in the impaired physical energies, the undeveloped and unstored minds, and the depraved morals and manners of those who attend it. Thus the very life and energy-the enjoyment, the honor, the well-being of the whole community, is at stake. There is involved, too, an immense investment of capital and annual expenditure. We have several hundred thousand dollars invested in school houses; and the schools are kept up at an expense of many hundreds of thousands annually, besides. All this expenditure the Legislature creates, sanctions, and in some measure regulates. But, as remarked before, the whole is left without supervision or accountability. We do not know how the money is expended, or with what results. We have not even inquired what the results ought to be, or made any provision for learning what they are. As a State, we provide the funds, and leave them, and almost every thing else, in the irresponsible hands of the teachers and school committees of the different districts.

No other department of the public service is willingly left thus without supervision or control. Every where else it is our place to require accountability for the use of funds and the discharge of duties. Every where else we would take due measures to know how our legislation works, and to learn whether the results that might justly be expected, are secured by our expenditures. Why, your committee would ask, should this greatest of all interests-this greatest of all expenditures, be made an exception? Why should not the whole subject be submitted to a thorough annual examination and revision, by means of a system of accountability reaching every agent, every committee, and every teacher? Why should we not annually consult these agents, and gather up and diffuse thro' the community, by means of their reports, the results of their study and experience? Is there any better way to discover any defects, any want of efficiency, any errors and abuses in the system? Is there any class of men whose suggestions for its improvement would be more valuable ? Had we found ourselves, as a State, in a similar condition of irresponsibility and ignorance in regard to any other great public interest,

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