Note 26 — PART VI. MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. (continued 7)

§ 5. Estimating eight hundred militia to a county, there will be twelve captaincies or wards in a county on an average. Suppose each of these, three years in every six, to have children enough for a school, who have not yet had three years schooling; such a county will employ six teachers, each serving two wards by alternate terms. These teachers will be taken from the laboring classes, as they are now, to wit: from that which furnishes mechanics, overseers and tillers of the earth; and they will chiefly be the cripples, the weakly and the old, of that class, who will have been qualified for these functions by the ward schools themselves. If put on a footing then, for wages and subsistence, with the young and the able of their class, they will be liberally compensated: say with one hundred and fifty dollars wages and the usual allowance of meat and bread. The subsistence will probably be contributed in kind by the warders, out of their family stock. The wages alone will be a pecuniary tax of about nine hundred dollars. To a county, this addition would be of about one-fifth of the taxes we now pay to the State, or about one-fifth of one per cent, on every man's taxable property; if tax can be called that which we give to our children in the most valuable of all forms, that of instruction. Were those schools to be established on the public funds, and to be managed by the Governor and council, or the commissioners of the Literary fund, brick houses to be built for the schools and teachers, high wages and subsistence given them, they would be badly managed, depraved by abuses, and would exhaust the whole Literary fund. While under the eye and animadversion of the wards, and the control of the wardens and visitors, economy, diligence, and correctness of conduct, will be enforced, the whole Literary fund will be spared to complete the general system of education, by colleges in every district for instruction in the languages, and an university for the whole of the higher sciences; and this, by an addition to our contributions almost insensible, and which, in fact, will not be felt as a burthen, because applied immediately and visibly to the good of our children.

A question of some doubt might be raised on the latter part of this section, as to the rights and duties of society towards its members, infant and adult. Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend?—to guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these: we draw a line, but where?—public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely. Nor is it necessary in the present case. It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father. What is proposed here is to remove the objection of expense, by offering education gratis, and to strengthen parental excitement by the disfranchisement of his child while uneducated. Society has certainly a right to disavow him whom they offer, and are not permitted to qualify for the duties of a citizen. If we do not force instruction, let us at least strengthen the motives to receive it when offered.